


Win Some, Lose Some

by Megameatloafcake



Series: FBI AU! [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: All sorts of drama really, Bribery, Crime Drama, Explosions, F/M, Guns, It's Seto Kaiba what are you expecting?, Near death experiences galore, PTSD, Past Character Death, Psychology analysis, Swearing, the works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 04:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12161559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megameatloafcake/pseuds/Megameatloafcake
Summary: *Yu-gi-oh! Reader Insert in what is essentially the Japanese version of an FBI Alternate Universe*You and your team have been asked to help track down the man who's been sending bomb threats to the Kaiba Corporation, and working with the ever stubborn Seto Kaiba is not helping you solve the case. But as the deadline the threat mentions draws closer, more Kaiba Corp property gets destroyed and more people are getting hurt. You have to find a way to end this madness before you lose it all.***UPDATES AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH, BECAUSE I SUCK***





	1. The Start of a Brand New Case

**Author's Note:**

> Does there need to be A N O T H E R Kaiba x Reader fic up here? No. Am I gonna write another one anyway? Yes. Am I garbage? Absolutely.  
> I couldn’t get a police AU out of my head since watching Season 4 recently and was inspired by my love for the TV show _Criminal Minds_ , and I haven’t seen anything like this so I’m going to be the one to write it. I had to do a LOT of research since this is going to be centered around the Japanese police system. I don’t write a lot of Reader insert stories, but hopefully this particular story will be adequate. Disclaimer: I don’t own Yu-gi-oh! or any of its characters. I only own this plot and the original characters I may end up putting into this story.

You sighed as you slumped over your desk, bored out of your mind. Arms folded across your desk, you currently had nothing better to do than push one of your pens around your desk.

“You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

Your head snapped up at the voice and a cup of coffee was held up in front of your face. You smiled up at your co-worker and practically swiped the coffee from his hand.

“Yugi, you’re a goddamn gem.”

The aforementioned young man with spikes of various colored hair jutting out wildly chuckled as you desperately chugged the liquid, not caring about how bitter or hot it was.

“I didn’t think you needed it that much!” You waved your hand at him as you drained the drink. “Anyways, Daiki wants all of us to meet up in the office. You’ll finally have something to do other than play with your pen.”

Yugi walked off, probably to deliver the rest of the drinks he had in a carrier to your other team members. After he had finished his sentence you quickly stood up and made a beeline towards your boss. The walk wasn’t very long, but it felt like it took forever because you were so restless and antsy. While you did have some cases over the past few days all of them were very minor cases and didn’t hold your attention for very long. Whenever your boss Daiki Oshiro wanted the whole team to meet up, it usually implied that there was a big case which made you feel giddy. You finally made your way to the meeting place and flung yourself into one of the seats, organizing your notebook and pen in front of you. You turned your head eagerly when you heard your teammates greet you with a ‘good morning’ as they walked in.

“Looks like we’ve finally got somethin’ ta do!” Katsuya Jonouchi chirped. The blonde young man had been just as excited as you were to be getting a big job and plopped himself down in the seat next to you.

Hiroto Honda, a young man with dark brown eyes and hair of a similar color styled up into one spike, patted his friend as he took a seat. Followed by Anzu Mazaki and Yugi Mutou, Ryuji Otogi, and finally their boss walked in last.

“Good news and bad news,” the older man said as he took his seat at the head of the table. “Good news is that we have something to do. The bad news is that we don’t have as much of a case quite yet.”

Everyone quirked an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?” the blue-eyed brunette woman asked.

Daiki let out a sigh, but Ryuji, the team’s dark-haired and bright green eyed Technical Analyst, spoke for him.

“He means that we don’t have much to go off of.” The projector in the room went down and Ryuji pressed a button, showing pictures of some buildings that looked like they had been blown up. “Within the Domino area there have been bombings during these past few months. The first few buildings were empty and were relatively random, but these more recent ones had been owned by Kaiba Corporation. The regular buildings had about a two week time span, but the wait between the Kaiba Corporation buildings was less than a week.” 

Everyone but Daiki sent you glances at the mention of the name, and you slightly stiffened. You and Seto Kaiba had dated back when the two of you were in high school, but you two broke up when you underwent training to become an officer. He was _very_ against you joining and the two of you argued until you ultimately decided to cut the ties with him. It was a pretty bad break-up; but that was almost ten years ago. You could only hope that the man would be professional enough to look past it and cooperate with this case-if there even was a case at all.

“Is Kaiba Corporation asking us for help?” Honda asked skeptically.

Dread began to pool in your belly. Daiki nodded and you silently cursed to yourself. You were honestly surprised that Kaiba would ask for help, the man was far too egotistical and proud to stoop for such a thing. The man never asks for help for anything, so why would he ask for it now? You laughed when Jonouchi groaned and narrowed his honey-brown eyes.

“There’s NO way Seto Kaiba would ask for help, _especially_ from the National Police Agency,*" he stated with confidence.

“Well it’s a good thing it wasn’t Seto who asked for help.”

Everyone snapped their heads to Daiki. Ryuji pressed a button on his remote and a familiar face appeared on the screen. 

“Hiya guys! Long time no see!”

“Mokuba??” You and your co-workers asked incredulously all at once.

Mokuba Kaiba, Seto Kaiba’s younger brother by five years, snickered at your reactions. You hadn’t seen him in nearly ten years, but Mokuba certainly seemed to have grown up quite a bit. His once dark colored mess of a mane was now relatively tamed and kept tied back in a ponytail, his plum colored eyes still held a mischievous twinkle that you were all too familiar with, and his face held no sign of childish roundness. He looked more like his brother than you remembered and it was a bizarre image to look at.

“Why do you guys seem so surprised? There are two Kaibas, remember?”

You rested your head on the table briefly as you recovered from the relief of seeing Mokuba instead of his brother.

“It’s nice to see you too Mokuba,” Yugi said with a smile, “but could you tell us why you need our help?”

“Yeah,” Jonouchi agreed, still skeptical at the young man. “Doesn’t Kaiba have his own body guards who can deal with this sortta thing?”

Mokuba’s visage changed and suddenly the usually cheery young man frowned deeply.

“He does, but I don’t want him to rely on himself so heavily. Especially since these threats have gotten pretty serious and personal. Plus," his eyes drifted downward, "you guys have helped us out in the past, and we _especially_ need your help now.”

You leaned forward with intrigue.

“What kinds of threats are these?” Daiki asked.

Mokuba nodded to Ryuji.

“You got the email I sent you, yeah?” Ryuji pressed a button on the remote that caused the window Mokuba inhabited to shrink down and fill up half the screen while a letter filled up the other half. “I think we’re being stalked.”

You scanned through the letter’s words carefully and analyzed a meaning behind it.

“Kaiba,” Anzu began to read aloud, “you may have noticed a few of my lovely bombs being the cause of the demolition of your buildings. Don’t worry, this is only the beginning of the consequences of your actions. You are going to pay for what you did, and I’ll rid the world of you and your pathetic company once and for all.”

“This guy sounds pretty serious,” Honda noted. “Have you received any other notes similar to this one?”

Mokuba shook his head.

“While my brother receives lots of threats, none of them have been tied with something like this before or have been this brief. Usually when he receives letters from stalkers he puts an end to it, but my brother hasn’t had the time to deal with this one.”

“That could explain why two of Kaiba Corp owned buildings exploded,” Yugi theorized. “Kaiba hasn’t had the time to respond and the bomber is growing restless.”

“But then there would have been a letter at the other site too, and there has only been one that was found,” Anzu said.

The group collectively let out annoyed grunts and frustrated sighs.

“Usually whenever there is a stalker involved there is usually a sexual connotation, but I don’t see anything like that in the letter.” You commented. “This guy is all about revenge.”

“How are you so sure it’s a guy?” Mokuba asked.

“We don’t see very many female bombers, simply because of the violence that comes with explosions,” Daiki explained. “Females will very rarely become so violent that they resort to bombs, especially if they are fueled by revenge such as this man. Female bombers typically work with a partner as well, but the letter only states that there is one person.”

Mokuba seemed starstruck by the group’s analysis so far, making you chuckle.

“Mokuba, is there anybody that you can think of who might wanna hurt Kaiba?” Yugi asked.

Mokuba shrugged.

“Sure I do. Like I’ve said, my brother has received lots of threats before so it’s difficult to pin-point any possible suspects.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jonouchi cut in. “How do we even know that all of these bombs were by the same person?”

“That’s because we’ve examined the remains of the bombs and all four of these explosions had the same types of materials with the ones found with the letter,” Ryuji replied easily.

“Oh.”

You observed Mokuba quietly, something about this wasn’t setting right with you. Not even the younger Kaiba brother would ask for outside help without a good reason. _Unless..._

“Mokuba,” the young man turned his attention towards you, your coworkers did the same. “There’s a reason why you’re coming to us instead of having your guards deal with this guy, and it isn’t because you don’t want your brother to rely on himself. What’s the real reason? Is there something you’re not telling us?”

Mokuba shifted uncomfortably under your intense stare before he let out a defeated sigh.

“My brother doesn’t seem to think so, but I have a gut feeling that someone from Kaiba Corp is helping this guy out. I don’t think I can trust anybody who’s with security, and I know that I can trust you guys.”

You nodded when he confirmed your suspicions.

“What makes you say that?” Anzu asked.

Mokuba nodded to Ryuji once again and images of bomb pieces appeared on screen.

“Kaiba Corp analyzed the remains of the bombs. The parts that we found...well, I haven’t seen them since Gozaburo was the head of our company.”

Ryuji had zoomed in on one of the pieces, revealing the old Kaiba Corporation logo from when Kaiba and Mokuba’s adoptive father owned the company.

“I don’t know how this guy found them, but I know that very few people at the coporation knows where we kept Gozaburo’s weapons.”

“Does Kaiba know about this?” Honda asked.

Mokuba shook his head.

“I only found out recently, and I was the first to be notified of the findings since Seto is so busy.”

“Does he know we’re coming?” Anzu asked.

Once again, Mokuba shook his head. You let out a sigh.

“Man, Kaiba’s not gonna be happy when we show up,” Jonouchi muttered.

You glanced back to your boss.

“Wait, are we taking the case?”

Mokuba’s eyes seemed to plead as he looked at Daiki, who seemed to be thinking pretty deeply. Finally, he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair before he leaned forward and began to collect his papers.

“We’ll take the case. Thank you for your information Mr. Kaiba.”

Mokuba smiled thankfully and he looked like he was about to cry.

“Thank you! I’ll be sure to set you guys up with IDs so you can get into the buildings.”

And with that the screen turned dark.

“Alright, let’s get going to Domino.”

You let out an annoyed huff, but you flinched away when you met the slate-colored stare of your boss. He called your name as he made his way over to where you still sat while everyone else headed out.

“You’re going to be alright handling this case, aren’t you?”

You frowned and slumped further into your seat.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Why not ask Jonouchi if he’ll be okay, he freaking hates Kaiba!”

“But he’s not the one who was in a romantic relationship with him.” Ouch, that hurt a little. “I need to trust that you can handle this case without past emotions interfering.”

You looked up at your boss

“Sir, Kaiba and I dated for three years and it ended ten years ago, if I’m not over it now then I would have locked myself away in an asylum.”

Daiki nodded slowly before walking out of the room. When you were finally alone you let out an irritated grown before slumping over onto the table and letting your face restagainst the smooth wooden surface.

“Please don’t let this blow up in my face!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you see that pun at the end though? Or could it be foreshadowing? Read the story and find out! Mwuahaha.
> 
> *The National Police Agency is the police force in Japan


	2. Getting Involved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being so patient with me! I'll probably be updating a new chapter every Friday. Enjoy the chapter! :-)

You sat in the backseat of the sleek black van, staring out the window as Jonouchi drove towards the infamous Kaiba Coproration building. The rest of your team was in the van as well and you were sitting in between the window and Yugi, with Daiki up front. 

A nervousness you hadn’t felt in a long time stirred up in your belly and you grew angry when you realized you were nervous about seeing Kaiba again for the first time in ten years. You had occasionally read about him in the papers, usually about how his company was releasing some brand-new game that was sure to sell thousands of copies worldwide. Neither you nor Jonouchi would ever play them, but Yugi seemed to enjoy the games Kaiba Corp. created. You frowned as you remembered the last conversation you had with him before you broke up.

*Cue flashback!!*

You bounced on your heels excitedly in the elevator as you held the paper in between your hands. The elevator to Seto’s office dinged and you made a beeline to his desk assistant just to make sure that he wasn’t in a meeting. You waved to her as you approached and she waved back, pointed to his office which you took as a signal to head on in. You quietly opened the large door and peeked your head into the office.

“You don’t need to be so discreet,” the disgruntled CEO said to you without looking up from his laptop. “It’s more annoying when you try to be quiet, just come in." 

You were in far too good a mood to let your boyfriend’s snarky attitude bother you, and instead you smiled. Skipping up to his desk he gave you a wary stare. 

“You seem to be in a good mood,” he commented as you moved around his desk and gave him a peck on the lips as you usually did. 

You continued to smile as you pulled out the letter you held and waved it in his face. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m in a good mood?" 

The young man stared curiously at you before eyeing the letter you held between her fingers. 

“What is this?” 

You gave him a smug smile in response. 

“Read it and find out~.” 

Seto took the letter you held and silently read through the document. You swayed yourself from side to side as your boyfriend read with a stone face- this made you feel a bit nervous. How was he going to react? You got your answer when he placed the document on his desk and slid it over to you before he continued to type on his computer. 

“Absolutely not.” 

You felt as though the world had frozen around you and a wave of emotions coursed through you; confusion, anger, shock, and heartbreak being the emotions you could identify. You shook your head a little bit and cleared your throat quietly. 

“What do you mean?” 

Seto didn’t miss a beat when he replied, not looking up from his computer screen. 

“I’m saying no.” 

You felt anger swell up in your chest, but you kept your cool. There wasn’t any use in raising your voice this quickly in an argument, and you were determined to persuade him into agreeing with you. 

“Seto, this has been something I’ve been working towards for my whole life- this has been my dream since I was a kid.” 

“I know that,” he replied coolly. 

You huffed a little bit and placed your hands on your hips. 

"Then why are you telling me I shouldn’t?” 

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t, I’m only saying that you aren’t." 

Okay, now you were starting to get angry. You grit your teeth and took a moment to regain your composure before you spoke again. 

“And why not?” 

Seto shot a glance to you, you said those words slowly and with emphasis which meant that you were losing your cool. Damn. He turned away from his laptop before he leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Because you are not fit to be a police officer.” 

You gasped, although it sounded more like a sharp intake of breath, and you balled your hands up into fists at your sides. This wasn’t the first time he’s insulted you like this, but becoming an officer in Japan had been something you’ve been wanting to do since you were little- especially since your father was an officer himself. 

“What do you mean by that?” Your voice raised a bit in volume, but you didn’t care. 

Seto glared at you for the tone you spoke to him, then he stood up. 

“It’s because you are far too childish, irresponsible, and emotionally driven to take on something as disciplined as a police officer,” he had taken slow steps toward you as he spoke and was now towering over you. “I will not have you run around playing cops and robbers while real officers are risking their lives.” 

That one hurt much more than you expected it to. Angry tears began to swell in your eyes and you snatched the letter off Seto’s desk and began to read aloud. You began by reading your name off of the document. 

“ _After reviewing your test scores, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the National Police Agency Training Program in Tokyo to begin your 6-month training to becoming an officer. The program begins on Monday August 7th, but we expect you to arrive at the camp no later than Friday, August 4th. Upon arriving you will receive the rest of the documents which detail requirements to become a full-fledged officer of Japan. We look forward to seeing you there_.” You shoved the paper in his face and pointed at the signature at the bottom. “You see! This is signed by the head of the NPA himself! He wants me there, Seto! I want to be there; don’t you understand that?” 

Seto seemed a bit taken aback by your statement, but then he leaned towards you. 

“I understand what the document entails, but they’re only words. They know that you were one of the top members of the class when you graduated and that you received high marks on their test, but they don’t know you personally.” His voice was low and quiet, it honestly made you shudder when combined with the cold anger in his piercing blue eyes. “One they see who you are, all of your academic achievements will be blown out the window and you’ll be kicked out in less than a week.” 

You swallowed down the urge to cry that began to rise up, crying now would only further prove his point. Instead you glared up at him challengingly and straightened up. 

“I can take classes. One of the requirements is that you have to take a fighting and discipline class.” 

Seto took a step back as he scoffed. 

“With what money? I’m certainly not going to pay for these classes for you.” 

“Who the hell said I wanted you to?” you countered. “Classes aren’t that expensive." 

“You’re going to need to be able to take down people who are twice as big as you. And since you’re so puny, anyone could defeat you easily." 

“I’ll take Judo then, and start working out.” 

Seto scoffed once again, then walked back to his desk and moved to sit down. 

“Forget it. You’re not joining and that’s final.” 

If Seto was assuming that you would simply back down and submit, he had a hell of a storm coming. 

“You can’t control me, Seto!” You shouted. Pride be damned, you were angry as hell and you didn’t care if it made you look childish. “Unlike everyone else you’ve met, I’m not going to bend myself backwards in order to please you.” 

Seto snorted quietly. 

“You didn’t seem to have as much of a problem with that last night.” 

Oh, he did NOT just say that. 

Instead of retorting back you decided to turn around and walk out of his office with your lips pressed tightly together. 

“You know,” you began as you stood in front of his doors, “romantic partners are supposed to be supportive of each other. I’ve supported you all this time, but why can’t you do the same for me?" 

You looked back at him from over your shoulder back at him as you waited for a response. He didn’t even look at you as he continued to type on his computer. 

“Don’t be so childish and dramatic. If you want to end this relationship then say so and get out, I have far more important things to worry about.” 

You grit your teeth and turned your head to avoid looking at him. 

“Fine.” 

And with that you left the office. 

*End of flashback*

After you broke it off you expected to hear from him demanding you come back to his office or something, but you hadn’t heard anything from him since. Sure, Mokuba still kept in touch with you after the break-up, but as time went by the two of you drifted apart. Luckily for you, you had waited about two more days before you had to go to camp and begin your training. There you met the members of your future team: Anzu had become your roommate, Jonouchi and Honda were in your Judo class, you met Ootogi at the gym, and Yugi was one of the first partners you had been paired with during training. Back then you never thought that your new friends knew each other, but you were pleasantly surprised to learn that they were all friends back in high school; hell, you were surprised to learn that all of you had graduated from Domino High School. And when you told them about how you had dated Seto Kaiba, they were all humorously shocked. 

You all graduated the academy and vowed that you wouldn’t forget each other; only to find out that you were all assigned to be a team together since you all had worked so cohesively during training. You were a much happier person after breaking up with the young CEO and you believed that you had grown-up quite a bit during the grueling training you endured. And, as luck would have it, it all came full circle now that you and your team were working on the one case that Kaiba was involved with.

“We’re here,” Jonouchi grunted as he parked nearest to the building and you all piled out of the van.

All of you stretched your limbs from having been seated for about an hour and a half.

“I wonder what good-ol’ Kaiba’s like now,” Honda pondered as the team gathered up and began to migrate towards the building’s entrance.

You shrugged.

“I haven’t seen him on TV as much, so I have no idea.”

“Yeah,” Yugi agreed. “I’ve seen Mokuba take over for interviews, but I haven’t seen Kaiba all that much. I wonder why...”

“Alright everyone,” Daiki interrupted as they stood in front of the glass doors of Kaiba Corporation, “I need all of you to put any feelings of pettiness aside and act professional. Remember, this is a very serious case and we want to stop this bomber from escalating and hurting anybody. Once we get inside we need to set up and get to work as soon as we have access.”

You held your tongue and resisted the urge to mention how Kaiba was the KING of pettiness. Everyone nodded and voiced their agreement before they stepped inside of the building. The group simply walked briskly towards the front desk, where a young woman with brown hair tucked up into a bun and brown eyes sat typing away on a computer. You read her nametag that said her name was Aiko Kurosawa.

“Excuse me,” Daiki caught her attention, but spoke before she had the chance to ask how she could help them. “We are with the National Police Agency, I believe Mokuba has temporary cards for us?”

All of you held up your NPA badges for Aiko to inspect. The young girl nodded and opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out the cards for them.

“Here are your cards, I’ll let Mokuba know you’re here.”

“No need! I’m right here!”

The team turned their heads and saw Mokuba Kaiba jogging towards all of you. 

“Mokuba,” Yugi greeted, “hey! It’s good to see you again!”

Once he stopped in front of all of you, he bowed to the team and you all bowed back to him. Mokuba had certainly grown taller than you expected, he was almost the same height as Daiki and the man was easily 187 centimeters! Mokuba’s eyes drifted towards you briefly before he looked back at Yugi.

“I only wish that it was under better circumstances,” he held his arm out to what you recognized as a private elevator. “Please, let me show you to where you’ll be setting up.”

The team followed the younger Kaiba brother to the elevator and packed themselves into the small room. The ride up was filled with a moment awkward silence until Daiki chose to broke it.

“Have you heard any more news from the bomber?”

The young man shook his head.

“No, and we haven’t heard about any buildings blowing up either.”

“Where do you want us to start?” Anzu asked Daiki.

The older man briefly thought for a moment, you shifted uncomfortably when you felt Mokuba’s eyes on you.

“Start by interviewing the construction workers who oversaw those buildings, see if they know anything about the bomber.”

“Jou and I can do that,” Honda offered, and Daiki nodded.

“Right, and then Ryuji. You can set up for the case, then I need you to track down anybody who may have information about Gozaburo’s weaponry.”

“I could help,” Mokuba suggested.

Daiki nodded.

“Then send that list to Yugi and Anzu so they can interview them.”

“Right,” Yugi said, “but what would you want us to do in the mean time?”

Daiki gestured to you.

“You two can help us put together a profile for the bomber.”

You nodded once you got your assignment. Mokuba let out a whistle.

“Man, you guys sure do get down to business pretty quickly.”

“Well if we want to start this bomber, then we have to work fast,” Ryuji replied.

The elevator dinged and the team quickly filed out.

“Alright, let’s get to work,” Jonouchi cheered.

You were the last person to leave the elevator, and you turned your head when you felt a hand on your shoulder. Your suspicions were correct when you saw Mokuba behind you with a rather apologetic look on his face.

“Hey, can we talk for a moment?”

You nodded and followed Mokuba into an empty hallway. You folded your arms and leaned against the wall as you gave the younger Kaiba a quizzical look.

“What did you want to talk about?” you asked, even though you were certain that you knew what he was going to say.

Mokuba let out a sigh and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Look,” here it comes, “I know that working with my brother may be hard on you, especially with what happened between you two...”

“It’s fine,” you stated abruptly. “As long as my team can catch this bomber, I’m able to look past the past.”

Mokuba’s eyes met yours and he offered you a weak smile.

“You know...he hasn’t really been the same since you two broke up.”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes.

“I’m sure he hasn’t.” You winced at the hurt that flashed in his eyes, but then you smiled at him and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get back to the team.”

Mokuba nodded meekly and you followed him to the office the team set up in. _Damn_ , you thought. _Maybe I’m not entirely over it_.


	3. The Storm After the Calm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short chapter, I know. I had a bit of writer's block with this particular chapter because I had a hard time coming up with it. Hopefully I can get the story's ball rolling within the next couple of days.

The only people who occupied the meeting room were yourself, Daiki, Yugi, and Anzu, and the four of you had been discussing theories and pulling together a possible profile for the bomber; but you only found yourselves stuck since there was not a whole lot to go on until you all received more information from either Jou and Honda or Mokuba and Ryuji. For now, you were sitting ducks until something happened.

Then, Daiki’s phone rang. _Guess something happened after all_ , you thought. The three of you perked up and looked at Daiki as he answered his phone- though he did not seem very happy.

“Alright, thanks.” As soon as he hung up his phone he made a move to stand up. “The bomber hit another building, this time a few people were inside”

“Are they okay?” Anzu asked with worry laced in her voice.

Daiki nodded and they all stood up.

“This is strange,” you started. “The first couple of bombings had an interval of two weeks, then a week between Kaiba Corp buildings. It’s only been a few days since the last building exploded and there were people inside.”

“Which means that the bomber is escalating quickly and becoming increasingly violent.”

You all stood in the elevator, but you held the door when you saw Mokuba dash around the corner with a frantic look on his face.

“There’s been another bombing!”

“We know,” Yugi replied calmly, though Mokuba seemed anything but calm.

“The people inside the building were executives from the company who were overlooking the building! And my brother is coming to the site!”

You felt your blood run cold and your heart dropped into your belly.

“Why?” Anzu asked. “He hasn’t been to the previous sites.”

“But this time his employees were in the building,” Daiki answered before Mokuba had the chance. “Well, we were going to have to meet with him eventually.”

The team let out a collective sigh of dread. Kaiba wasn’t easy to deal with when he’s calm, you couldn’t imagine what he’d be like knowing that his buildings are blowing up.

“I take it that your brother is finally admitting that this is a much more serious threat than he thought?” You asked as you leaned against the elevator wall and folded your arms over your chest.

Daiki sent you a warning glance but Mokuba nodded.

“He’s pretty pissed that he hadn’t dealt with it earlier.”

You nodded and the elevator dinged. Your phone rang and you quickly answered when you saw it was Jonouchi.

“What’s up?”

“Honda and I are out here, we heard what happened. Hell, we were about to hit that building up before it blew up!”

You thanked him and hung up, grateful that the blonde man seemed to have read your mind. The van was waiting for you near the front doors and you all quickly packed yourselves in. The drive there was filled with tense silence as Mokuba quickly texted his brother and updated the group on what was going on.

“The building was originally planned for demolition. That’s what Seto’s going to tell the news, anyway.”

“Well he can’t use that as an excuse if more buildings continue to blow up,” Yugi said.

Mokuba let out a quiet groan as he scrolled through the news articles on his phone.

“The media is all over the place, this only happened ten minutes ago!”

“Shit, the media can get a story out that fast?” Honda asked incredulously.

“What are they saying?” Anzu asked directly.

You were sitting next to the young man, so you peered at Mokuba’s phone and frowned.

“So far they’re only saying that a Kaiba Corp building exploded and that they will update the public on more details, it doesn’t look like Kaiba’s made a public statement yet.”

As you arrived at the site, a swarm of reporters surrounded the car.

“Aww, damnit!” Jonouchi groaned. “I hate these news hounds!”

“Just push through them, don’t give any details about the case,” Daiki instructed.

You all nodded before stepping out of the vehicle. Being surrounded by lights, cameras, and shouting people was definitely NOT something you missed from dating Kaiba. The news reporters’ chattering turned into white noise as you all made your way to the site, flashing your badges at the other cops before you came across the scene.

And then you heard it.

“I don’t care what you tell the media. I just want them to know that the Kaiba Corp. workers are alright and that we are going to find whoever’s responsible for this.”

You took a slow breath in as you saw that familiar icey-blue gaze crossed paths with your own very briefly. You wondered if he even saw you there or if he was just surveying the area until he started walking up to your team. You felt a bit happy when you saw that Jonouchi was sneering at the CEO, although Kaiba stopped in front of all of you. He seemed to take a moment to scan the group before he settled down on Daiki. 

“Who are you?”

Everyone pulled out their badges and flashed them at him, though you and Jonouchi held smug Cheshire Cat-like grins on your faces .

“We are with the National Police Agency. My name is Daiki Oshiro, and this is my team, all of whom I believe you are already familiar with.”

Kaiba didn’t even spare the group a glance before he folded his arms over his chest and glared at Daiki, who was a few centimeters taller than Kaiba.

“I don’t need you here, I have my own security team who are trained to handle these threats.”

You were witnessing an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force; it honestly made you feel tense or like the world was going to end.

“Mister Kaiba, is there some place private where we can talk?”

Kaiba glared at him.

“I’ll pass on that, you can go ahead and leave.”

Mokuba suddenly stepped up.

“Seto, I called them here.”

You couldn’t help the satisfied grin that grew across your face after Mokuba spoke up; Kaiba looked so betrayed.

“Mokuba? Why?”

The group was quiet up until this point.

“Because he thinks one o’ your guys may be leaking info to the bomber,” Jonouchi said for the younger Kaiba brother, although he received a harsh glare from the elder.

“That isn’t possible,” he stated bluntly. “Nobody within my company would ever get past me to do this.”

“Yeah, well apparently someone did,” you said. You resisted the urge to flinch when Kaiba turned his glare towards you and continued to explain, “we’ve been finding bomb remains that are dated back to when Gozaburo owned Kaiba Corporation. Mokuba has already explained that the only people who could have known about this are all current Kaiba Corp. personnel.”

Kaiba scoffed.

“Nice try, but I fired everyone who worked under my adoptive father after I took over the company. They wouldn’t have access to the building.”

“Unless they’re receiving help from the inside,” you countered, taking a step towards him and giving him a challenging glare.

Kaiba continued to attempt to stare you down. This little intimidation tactic hardly worked when you two were dating and it certainly wasn’t going to work on you now. Luckily before either of you two said anything, Yugi cut in.

“Look, they just found the remains of the bomb. Tell me if this looks familiar to you at all.”

Yugi held the pieces in an evidence bag out to Kaiba, who practically snatched it from the shorter young man and inspected the pieces. A smug smile tugged at the corners of your lips as Kaiba’s face grew into a shocked expression, realizing that you were right.

“You said that this was an inside job, right?” He glowered at you, and you nodded. “Fine. In that case I’ll just have to fire everyone, just to be safe.”

Your team, minus Daiki, nearly fell over at the comment.

“Kaiba, are you serious?” Anzu shouted. “Don’t you realize that firing everyone would only cause more problems?”

Kaiba’s face settled into a neutral expression.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t. If what you’re saying is true, then firing everybody would be the most logical step. After that, you guys can do whatever you like with the ex-employees. Hope you find the bomber.”

He began to turn away on his heel but Daiki stopped him by speaking up.

“Mister Kaiba, doing so would only make the employees turn against you. If you were to fire the employee who has been leaking information out, then he and more people will join the bomber in his dangerous endeavor.”

You could only pray that Kaiba would actually listen to your boss’s prediction and pull his head out of his ass so you could stop the bomber.

“Agent Daiki! We found another note left behind by the bomber!” 

An officer rushed up to Daiki and handed him the envelope as well as a pair of latex gloves. He quickly slipped them on, opened the envelope, pulled out the letter, and quietly scanned the contents.

“What does this one say?” Honda asked.

“Kaiba,” Daiki read aloud, “I do hope that you’re at the site of my most recent bomb. Do I have your attention yet?”

You peered over your boss’s shoulder, as best as you could since he was so much taller than you, and looked at the contents.

“Why is it that we haven’t noticed that these letters are handwritten? They almost seem like love letters and they’re all addressed to Kaiba,” you looked up at the aforementioned man. “I think this dude is obsessed with you.”

Kaiba’s frown deepened.

“So Daiki,” Mokuba spoke up. “What should we do now?”

You looked up at your boss and saw determination flare in his steel-colored eyes.

“We need to come up with possible suspects for who the mole is, meaning that we need your help Mister Kaiba.” The younger man let out a huff. “Everyone else, back to your original assignments.”

The team began to head back towards the van until Mokuba spoke.

“Hey Seto, how did you get here?”

“I had my driver come and get me. Why?” Kaiba sounded suspicious, and you couldn’t help but feel the same.

“Well, why don’t we have Jonouchi and Honda take the van and continue with their part of the investigation while everyone else rides with us?”

You mirrored Kaiba’s surprised look and frowned.

“What??”

“That may be a good idea,” Daiki affirmed. “We’ll follow you to the car.”

Realizing you didn’t really have much of a choice you let out a defeated sigh, something that Kaiba did as well.

“This way.”

You trudged at the back of the group, very bitter about having to share an enclosed space with your ex-boyfriend.

“Have fun with Kaiba~~~!” Jonouchi jeered after you.

You groaned, but began to brace yourself for the awkward car ride that you were going to have to endure.


	4. An Awkward Car Ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to start giving these chapters names, but I'm not very creative unfortunately.

The car ride back to the Kaiba Corporation building was...awkward, to say the least. Yourself, Daiki, Yugi, and Anzu sat across from Mokuba and Kaiba- the elder of the two looked at anybody else but you.

“So, what do you know?” Daiki asked Kaiba, sending Yugi a glance to go ahead and write down notes (out of everyone Yugi had the best handwriting).

Kaiba pressed his lips together.

“I’ve fired _most_ of the employees who worked with my adoptive father.”

“We’re going to need their names.”

Kaiba nodded.

“Their names are Konosuke Oshita, Shuzo Otaki, Chikuzen Ooka, Soichiro Ota, and Kogoro Daimon. They helped Gozaburo design weapons, but now they work for my gaming company. We call them The Big Five.”

Daiki nodded before he looked over at you with an expectant look. Crap, he wanted you to ask the next question. You cleared your throat.

“Why didn’t you fire them?”

Kaiba didn’t look at you or seem to acknowledge your question, but he still answered.

“Back when Gozaburo was in charge they helped me take over the company by buying 49% of the company's shares in total, and then afterwards I stripped them of any power they wielded. They’re only figureheads and consultants now, jobs that are already so insignificant that it would do nothing to fire them.”

You wanted to slam your face into the window of the car, this man was so infuriating. Does he ever think of the consequences of his actions??

“Don’t you think that may have held some pretty bad repercussions?” Anzu blatantly asked.

Kaiba grunted.

“The Big Five and ex-employees are only bothersome insects compared to other threats I have received during my years as the CEO.”

You even saw that Daiki closed his eyes and took in a long breath of air through his nose, which was something you noticed that he did whenever he tries to keep his cool. Maybe your boss was starting to regret taking this case afterall.

“But because of your actions in the past, they are now retaliating against you and supplying equipment to the bomber.”

Kaiba’s frown grew deeper, you recognized that he did this when he was starting to get irritated. Luckily Yugi joined the conversation.

“Something that I haven’t been able to figure out is why this bomber decided to target Kaiba _now_. If this was related to getting fired or something, the bomber would have attacked sooner and would have expressed rage in the letters.”

The tension in the air luckily dissolved as they all pondered Yugi’s words.

“You guys are the psychology people, what does that mean?” Mokuba asked.

The four of you exchanged looks before you settled your focus back onto the Kaiba brothers in front of you.

“The man who’s been writing these letters is mocking you,” you started, not flinching when Kaiba finally fixed his hard gaze on you, “we know that for sure. He refers to his bombs as “lovely work”, this tells us that he’s a narcissist and sociopathic. He may also appear at the bomb sites to check out his work.”

Kaiba narrowed his eyes at you.

“She’s right,” Daiki acknowledged, which caused Kaiba to scoff.

“It’s only a theory. What do you even have on this guy anyway?”

“Well, we haven’t really seen a whole lot from this guy,” Anzu began to explain as she peeked over at Yugi’s notes.

“He’s more than likely a young Japanese male around his late twenties to early thirties and holds a grudge against the Kaiba Corporation.,” Yugi finished as he scanned the notes he took earlier while the group discussed before the bombing, he then glanced between the two Kaiba brothers. “We don’t know how much The Big Five may have smuggled to this guy, so who knows how many more buildings he could blow up.”

Silence momentarily settled over the group as the brothers processed what had been said.

“So how are we supposed to catch this guy?” Mokuba asked, shifting in his seat as his brother crossed his legs.

You nodded.

“The unfortunate thing in this case is that we have to wait. Hopefully something comes up that can help us catch this guy.”

Your phone began to ring, and you quickly answered it.

“Ryuji, please tell me you found something, you’re on speaker.”

“Yeah, those guys who are called The Big Five are the only people Kaiba’s kept on his staff from when Gozaburo was in charge.” You nodded at the confirmed information. “They used to build and sell weapons for Gozaburo, apparently. Something that’s interesting is that a few weeks before the bombings occurred they sold a lot of the weapons to someone who paid in cash; and let me tell you, these weapons are hella expensive. This bomber guy has to be loaded.”

“Well that’s going to narrow down the suspect pool,” Yugi commented.

“Woah.”

All of you looked at your phone curiously at Ootogi’s reaction.

“What is it Ryuji?” Daiki asked.

“I hacked into their bank accounts, and it looks like Soichiro Ota made a whole bunch of withdrawals in cash, we’re talking thousands of dollars in cash. But the same amounts of money comes back into their overall business budget.”

“What does that mean?” Mokuba asked again. The kid asks a lot of questions, but you couldn’t really blame him for it.

“It means that Soichiro is smuggling money to this guy so he can buy the weapons,” Kaiba answered.

“But why would he do that?” Anzu asked. “Wouldn’t it just be easier for them to just give this guy the weapons?”

Kaiba scoffed.

“The Big Five wouldn’t be willing to just give away weapons so willy-nilly when they could make a profit out of it.”

“Apparently not all of them,” Ryuji stated. “Soichiro is the only one out of the five of them who has withdrawn money, all the others’ bank accounts have remained the same.”

This was surprising.

“Did they all just decide that Soichiro would be the one giving money to this guy?” Yugi asked. “Seems like a lost cause since they aren’t really making much of a profit off of this guy, they’re basically taking money from Soichiro and adding it to the group’s account.”

“Unless the other four don’t know about this,” you theorized. “Thanks Ryuji,” you said before hanging up. “We gotta interrogate these guys.”

Daiki nodded.

“I can take care of that,” Kaiba spoke, leaving no room for argument. Too bad you were going to make room.

“Kaiba, you’re too personally invested in these guys. If you try to interrogate one of them they may just shut down, or even warn the bomber and set him off. It’d be better if we handled it.”

The blue eyes that you once loved now stared at you scornfully, causing your heart to wince a little.

“I’ll call Jonouchi and Honda to let them know to meet us back at Kaiba Corp.,” Anzu said as she pulled out her phone.

“We already know who the weak point of the group is,” Daiki said, then looked at you. “I want you to interrogate Soichiro.”

You nodded. Kaiba gave Daiki a curious look.

“What do you mean by “weakest point”?”

You were a bit surprised that Kaiba asked for clarification, Mokuba has been asking most of the questions so far.

“Simply put: it’s a term we often use for people, typically men, who are not as dominate or assertive as others in the group or pair,” Yugi explained. “You said that the Big Five members only care about making a profit, but they technically aren’t if they know about Soichiro supplying money to the bomber. This may mean that while the others are apathetic, Soichiro is the only one who shows empathy for this guy.”

Kaiba looked at you and you stiffened in your seat, sensing that he was going to say something about you.

“But why have _her_ do it?”

There it is. Kaiba still doesn’t believe that you are capable of doing your job.

“Because the “weakest point” may put more trust into a woman rather than a man, since women have more of an emotional understanding than men do” Daiki explained, glaring at Kaiba for insulting the skills of his team member. “She has received of valuable information while interrogating suspects in the past who have been deemed the “weakest point” and has been the most successful to do so. Don’t underestimate her skills and I’m expecting you to treat her as well as all of the members of my team respectfully.”

While he has done so in the past, you were incredibly touched by your boss sticking up for you in front of Kaiba. The CEO let out a ‘tsk’ and turned away. The rest of the ride settled back into a tense silence, even though it was only a few minutes long you were glad to get out of the limo.

“We should also have Ryuji cross-reference The Big Five with anybody who has had a connection with Kaiba Corp. back when Gozaburo was in charge,” Daiki spoke to you as you walked to the building. “You, Jonouchi, Honda, and Yugi will be interrogating. Anzu,” the brunette looked up at the mention of her name, “I want you to deal with the media and the reporters. Work with the Kaiba Corp’s Public Relations officer and let the media know that we are investigating this threat. And afterwards I want you to interrogate them as well”

“This guy wants attention, so make sure you emphasize how serious of a threat he is,” you added.

Anzu nodded and you all made it inside the building, where Jonouchi and Honda were waiting for you guys.

“So, who’s gonna be interrogatin’ who?”

Daiki gestured to you.

“She will be interrogating Soichioro, and Anzu will be with Konosuke. I want Jonouchi to interrogate Chikuzen, Honda with Shuzo, and Yugi with Kogoro.” He then turned to the Kaiba brothers, “where are their offices?”

Kaiba rose an eyebrow.

“Why not bring those scumbags to the precinct and interview them there?” Mokuba asked for his brother.

“If we bring them in, they may warn the bomber and flake out,” you explained. “If we interrogate them here they may feel that we don’t have dirt on them. “

“But we _do_ have dirt on them,” Kaiba said gruffly. 

You chose to ignore him.

“They all have their offices in the basement.” 

Kaiba gave his younger brother a nasty look at his betrayal, thank god for Mokuba.

“Thank you.” Daiki began to head towards the elevator, “you have your assignments, let’s get to work.”


	5. Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for uploading so much later, I was having trouble connecting to the wifi this weekend. Good news is that this chapter is one of the longer ones I've written for the story so far. I was really excited to post this chapter and was able to write it pretty quickly. I hope that you guys enjoy this chapter! :-)

Your team was given ear pieces so that you could hear what Daiki would say. He had a television set up in a separate room in order to watch the team members as they interrogated The Big Five- Ryuji had been able to hack into the cameras that were already in their offices. You adjusted your uncomfortable ear piece as well as your bag full of documents.

“Good luck!” Mokuba called to you while you walked away, Kaiba said nothing. He must still think you couldn’t do your job, well you sure as hell were about to show him.

As you neared Soichiro’s office you played with your hair a bit and unbuttoned your blouse so that you showed a teasing amount of cleavage; that’s always seemed to help get information out of suspects in the past, especially the men. You finally stood in front of a grand oak door, all of The Big Five’s offices were near each other and you wondered if they would be able to hear each other. You knocked on the door and after a few moments you heard a response that was muffled by the door.

“Who is it?”

You introduced yourself.

“I’m with the NPA, I just have a few questions I’d like to ask you. May I come in?”

There was a pause that lasted a few seconds before the door to the office finally opened to reveal a man with brown hair that was speckled with stray grays hairs. He regarded you with tired brown eyes, his face seemed very worn out and he looked generally exhausted. He wore a button-up shirt, a loosened tie, and black slacks with black shoes. All in all, this man looked like a mess.

“I suppose you’re here to investigate those bombings?”

You nodded and Soichiro stepped aside so that you could walk in, gesturing to the seat that sat on the other side of his desk. As you walked to the chair you took a moment to survey the office: it was far less extravagant than you expected. There wasn’t much in the room aside from a bookshelf, a desk, and two office chairs. The office space was small and rather old-looking, but you supposed that it had something to do with Kaiba heavily demoting him and the rest of The Big Five. You took your seat and waited for Soichiro to take his.

“Now, how can I help you agent?”

“I need to ask you some questions regarding the original owner of Kaiba Corporation, Kaiba Gozaburo.” 

Soichiro nodded grimly.

“What do you want to know?”

“Ask him about what he did under Gozaburo,” Daiki said through your ear piece.

You gave a curt nod.

“I need to know what exactly it was you did while Gozaburo was in charge.”

Soichiro gave you a quizzical look.

“Why do you need to know that? I’m sure that our current president could give you that information.”

You nodded as you reached into your bag to pull out a few photos.

“I am well aware that I _could_ ask him that, but he is incredibly difficult to speak with. I’m sure you can understand that,” you said with a small laugh as you rummaged through your bag. 

Soichiro let out an amused snort. Good, this meant that he was starting to get comfortable with you. You placed the images you finally managed to pull out on top of the desk, splaying them out so he could see all of them.

“The team that I work with found that these bombs have pieces that I’m sure you can recognize.” You pointed to the piece that had the old Kaiba Corporation logo embedded into it, “this was from when you worked with Gozaburo, isn’t it?”

Soichiro gazed at the photos, and he didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see the images nor was he surprised by the connection you made.

“Yes, they were made when Kaiba Corp. built weapons.”

“Did you help design these weapons?”

Soichiro gave you a suspicious look.

“Am I a suspect of the bombings?”

“That depends on what you tell me,” you countered.

Soichiro was being oddly defensive so quickly into the interrogation; this usually meant that he could be hiding something. You’d have to tread lightly if you wanted to avoid him clamming up, so you decided to change the subject.

“This bomber really seems like he’s mad at Kaiba. Blowing up his buildings and even hurting a few of his workers in the process.” 

Soichiro nodded solemnly.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt those people.”

You quirked a brow, usually people asked how you could guess the suspect’s gender. Soichiro’s reaction only further confirmed your suspicions. You let out a sigh and crossed your legs over each other.

“This guy must have been through quite a lot,” you began, “and with all of the anger he has towards Kaiba Corp., it makes you wonder why he’s doing all of this.” You slumped in your seat a little, “I want to feel sorry for him.”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Soichiro adjust in his seat, looking rather nervous.

“Are we done here?” He asked almost too eagerly and stood up.

You quickly checked your watch and noticed that you’d only been there for a few minutes.

“I still have questions I need to ask you. But if you want, I suppose we could just finish this up in the precinct of the Domino County Jail,” you leaned forward, with a slightly smug grin plastered on your face. “And with the media swarming every door outside, I’m sure that seeing you in the papers as a suspect to the bombing would be sure to ultimately ruin your reputation.” 

A beat of silence fell over you two and you gestured to his seat.

“Please, sit back down.” 

Soichiro did as you asked, reluctantly. 

“So, what was it that you did when you worked under Gozaburo?”

Soichiro ran a hand through his hair and he looked stressed.

“I was in charge of manufacturing the weapons and oversaw the military factories.”

You nodded.

“And how did you feel when the new CEO took over?”

Soichiro sighed.

“Back when Gozaburo was the head, he gave Seto 2% of the company as a birthday present and gave him a mission of earning back a hundred times that amount through investments within a year to prove that Seto had what it took to inherit the company.”

You pressed your lips together. Back when you had dated Kaiba, he and (mostly) Mokuba opened up to you about what it was like to live with Gozaburo and told you about the absurdly high expectations Kaiba had been held to. Gozaburo abused the hell out of Kaiba, and when he took over the corporation Gozaburo had committed suicide by jumping out of the window at the top of the building. Even without knowing Gozaburo, you were glad that he was dead after knowing everything he had done to Kaiba and Mokuba.

“But he obviously passed Gozaburo’s expectations,” you stated.

“Yes.”

“And he did that by promising you and the rest of The Big Five members more power than what Gozaburo gave you.” Soichiro let out a defeated sigh, you continued. “That must have been humiliating; having a child strip you of all the power you once held.”

“Yes, yes it was.”

You pulled out a picture of the bomb remains from your file and slid it over to him.

“Is that why you’ve been giving this guy parts to make his bombs?”

Soichiro shook his head. He seemed frazzled as hell and looked almost conflicted.

“No! No, it wasn’t me!”

You easily pulled out a screenshot of his bank account.

“It wasn’t you who gave these parts to this guy? That’s a little suspicious, considering that you’ve been withdrawing large quantities of money _all in cash_ and having that go back into the main bank account you and the rest of The Big Five share. That’s a pretty odd coincidence to me.”

Soichiro said nothing, he only stared at you dumbfoundedly.

“Ease up on him,” Daiki suggested through the earpiece. “You’ve been doing good so far, but bring him back and empathize with him more.”

You let out a sigh and leaned towards Soichiro, you gently placed a hand on his forearm.

“Look. I understand why you would want revenge on Kaiba, he took away your power and has been forcing you to work for him and his gaming company-“

“That’s not it!”

You blinked a couple of times, but you remained calm despite the sudden outburst.

“What do you mean?”

Soichiro grunted, staring down at the desk he sat at before finally taking a large breath.

“That’s not...that’s not the reason why he’s doing this.”

You quirked a brow. Was he confessing??

“You mean the bomber?” Soichiro nodded, and you moved closer. “Why is he doing this then?”

Tears began to form in Soichiro’s eyes and he looked at you, his eyes pleading for something.

“Please understand that I hated working under Gozaburo, I didn’t want to make all of those weapons but I had no choice!” He squeezed his hands together and stared at them intensely, “working under Kaiba Corporation was the best gig anyone could get, but it wasn’t without sacrifice. I wanted to quit, but Gozaburo said that he would ruin my life if I did and the rest of The Big Five pushed me into silence.”

You nodded, noting that it seemed Soichiro was one to give in to peer pressure. You figured that he was weak-willed, but this was a whole new level.

“What happened to make you team up with this guy?”

Soichiro swallowed before he spoke up again.

“During the wars, Kaiba Corporation supplied weapons to both sides. There was one country that was affected by the war much more than any other I had seen. I had found out that there was this...boy. He had his entire family killed by the bombings.”

You perked upon hearing this; past bombings could explain why the unsub chose to use bombs now, he must be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You nodded and silently urged him to go on.

“...I’m not sure what came over me at the time: guilt, compassion, sympathy, whatever you may call it. But after seeing this boy, who had lost everything because of what Kaiba Corporation did, because of what _I_ did, I felt that I was responsible for the child.” Soichiro leaned back into his chair and folded his arms across his chest as he gave you a look of resignation. “And so, I adopted him.”

While you maintained a poker face, you were internally screaming at the unexpected reveal. _Woah_ , you thought. _That’s one hell of a plot twist._ You cleared your throat.

“So, you’re telling me that your adoptive son is the bomber?” Soichiro nodded. “And you’ve been giving him money to buy the supplies he needed to make the bombs?” He nodded once again. You leaned back into your chair and looked at him grimly. “Have you had him treated for any possible PTSD he had while living in a war zone?”

Soichiro wasn’t focusing on you, he was staring blankly at something.

“I did have him go to several psychiatrists and they all gave him the same treatment and medication.”

You were intrigued.

“And?”

Soichiro let out a sigh, that wasn’t a good sign.

“None of the medications or treatments seemed to have been working for him. I was under the suspicions that he had something more than just PTSD like maybe Major-Depressive Disorder or even schizophrenia, but the psychiatrists dismissed me.”

You gave him a curious look.

“What made you think that?”

Soichiro shrugged.

“I took a few psychology courses over the years, read some books. He seemed to be excessively paranoid and would have very random outbursts.”

You frowned.

“Schizophrenia is mostly a hereditary mental illness and it’s very rare that someone can develop it out of the blue. Besides, symptoms rarely show up when someone is a kid, they begin to show up later in life- usually around the 40’s or 50’s.” He shrugged. “How old was he when you adopted him?”

He ran his hands through his hair and you could have sworn that he aged five years during your conversation.

“He was barely twelve-years-old.”

You pressed your lips together.

“Do the other members of The Big Five know about this?”

He shook his head. This wasn’t surprising.

“Why did you feel the need to hide this?”

It was Soichiro’s turn to press his lips together.

“They already thought that Gozaburo was weak for adopting Seto and Mokuba, I didn’t want them to think I was weak as well.”

“Ask about the relationship he had with his son,” Daiki said. “I’m having Ryuji look up the adoptive papers of the boy.”

“What was it like raising your adoptive son?” You asked, just as you were ordered to. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you: having no previous experience dealing with children and you’re suddenly taking care of a child who was a victim of war.” You shrugged, “it couldn’t have been easy for you, especially since you were working for the company who killed the only family he’s ever had.”

Soichiro seemed surprised by your ability to read him like an open book.

“No, he really wasn’t easy to be around. That’s what the maids and nannies told me, at least.”

“You didn’t interact with the boy you rescued?”

He stared at you blankly.

“How would you feel if the man who was responsible for the death of your family decided that in order to reconcile he adopts you.”

You blinked at the question and took a moment to think.

“I would have hated you.”

He nodded, and suddenly everything made sense.

“That’s why you’ve been giving him the money for the bombs, to make up for what Kaiba Corporation did to his family.”

He let out a humorless laugh.

“Damn, you figured me out quickly.”

You narrowed your eyes suspiciously at him.

“Tell me, why is he going after Kaiba Corporation now when he could have done so at any time he could have wanted?”

Soichiro undid one more button and slid the tie off from around his neck. He then closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair, letting out another defeated sigh.

“It’s because of some date.”

“What date?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know, it has something to do with the war or something.” 

“Or something?” You asked incredulously. “The company you worked for murdered his family, you adopted him, and you only dismiss that as ‘an important date or something’???”

Soichiro was surprised by your sudden outburst.

“November 4th.”

He looked you in the eye after he said the date, almost expectantly. You nodded, satisfied with all of the information you have learned.

“Thank you for your time.”

You got up and made your way to the office door.

“Wait,” you turned your head over your shoulder and looked back at him. “I gave you the information you needed, now what do I have to do to guarantee that I won’t be crucified in court?”

You stared at the ground briefly before snapping your attention back to him.

“I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you, I have a few friends in the court who could help both of us out.” You were once again about to take your leave before he stopped you once again.

“Agent,” you once again looked back at him, this time he seemed concerned. “When you find him, please be careful. This isn’t his fault.”

You paused briefly.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Soichiro.”

The two of you nodded to one another and you managed to finally leave the office.


	6. Compromised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A LOT of stuff goes down in this chapter, and I'm a little nervous about posting it just because I feel that it might feel a bit rushed. If it ends up being that way I'll go ahead and edit it. Please let me know what y'all think of this chapter, for the sake of my sanity!

You hadn’t realized how hot it had gotten during the interrogation until you reached the cool air of the hallway and let out a blissful sigh. You then made your way back toward the room where Daiki and Kaiba were, unbuttoning a bit of your shirt and fanning yourself as you walked. Kaiba gave you an odd look when you entered.

“You did a good job getting that information,” Daiki praised, and you couldn’t help but feel that it was to spite Kaiba even more. Your boss was never one to forgive and forget; the man had a memory like an elephant and any grudge that he held would have to be pried out of his cold, dead hands (so to speak).

Nevertheless, you smiled at your boss’s comment and gave Kaiba a smug smirk. He let out a huff and rolled his eyes. Mokuba grasped your shoulders and began to excitedly shake you.

“That was the coolest thing I have ever seen you do!” He began to gush. “I don’t think I’ve even seen Seto get information out that quickly!”

You dared to glance over at the aforementioned Kaiba brother, and he responded by coldly staring at his brother. Yugi and Honda were also in the room with you, apparently having finished their own interviews, and you decided that it was time to change the subject.

“What information did you guys salvage?”

Yugi rubbed at his nose sheepishly.

“Well, actually, we didn’t really get anything out of our guys. Especially since Soichiro was the main guy we were going to interrogate.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Honda agreed before reaching out and ruffling your hair. “You did a good job, kiddo.”

Your grin widened at the continued praise and ignored the glare you were receiving from Kaiba until Daiki’s phone went off.

“Go ahead Ryuji, you’re on speaker.”

You all moved closer to hear better as the older man held his arm out.

“Alright boys and girls, strap yourselves in because this is one hell of a ride,” Ryuji began. “So I checked through all of the adoption files to find the one that Soichiro had, but get this: the records were _sealed_. He did NOT want anyone finding out about this.”

“But I’m assuming that you found a way around that,” Honda interjected.

“Well duh,” Ryuji said in an offended tone that made you laugh. “Anyways, the kid’s name is Amelda. He didn’t have a last name until he was adopted, and then his name changed to Amelda Soichiro. This kid has been through a LOT, like A LOT a lot! He lived in a part of the country that was right in the _deadzone_ of the war, it’s a miracle that he even survived! His mom died when he was seven, and he was left to take care of his younger brother Mikey who was five years younger than him.”

“I don’t like the way that you used that past-tense,” Yugi noted with sadness etched in his voice.

“You have good ears there, Yugi. His little brother was killed by a Kaiba Corporation tank, all that they found of him was a small Dyna Guy action figure. And this was back when he was twelve-years-old, his brother was seven when he was killed.”

You felt your heart grow heavy; even though you already learned this information from Soichiro, it was always heart-breaking to learn about the death of a child.

“Get to the point already, you’re testing my patience,” Kaiba spoke gruffly.

Ryuji ‘humphed’ indignantly in response.

“Well _anyway_ , while I don’t know much about psychoanalyzing people I DO know a bad egg when I see one.”

You and your team members exchanged intrigued looks.

“How do you mean?” Daiki asked just as Jonouchi and Anzu were walking in, both of them looking absolutely exhausted.

“The war messed him up when he was a kid. He was eventually homeschooled by Soichiro because he kept getting expelled from public schools for getting into fights with kids and setting stuff on fire; things like fields of grass to even small rodents.”

You cringed at the thought.

“Yup, this guy sounds like a text-book definition of pyromaniac,” Honda said with a sigh.

“Uhh, does someone wanna fill us in?” Jonouchi interrupted.

“Soichiro was hiding the fact that he has an adopted a son, who is also the bomber,” Kaiba bluntly explained.

The two looked surprised, but remained quiet as they observed everything they were walking in on

“He got so bad that he was eventually kicked out of Soichiro’s house, the minute he turned eighteen in fact. It looks like he’s lived at a lot of different homeless shelters, some of which were caught on fire when they were empty or run-down.”

Something kept itching at the back of your head, but you didn’t know what it was. This didn’t make much sense to you and you couldn’t figure out why.

“If he had all of this time to practice and he had all of the supplies he needed, then why did he start bombing now? What changed in his life?”

“Apparently being kicked out of a home wasn’t a big enough stressor,” Anzu spoke thoughtfully. “How old is this guy now?”

“He should be around our age, actually,” Ryuji replied. “He’s twenty-eight years old.”

“Does he have an address?” Jonouchi asked. “Where does this guy work?”

Ryuji let out an annoyed grunt on the other end, that can’t be good.

“That’s the frustrating thing. Amelda has been homeless for the past ten years and he hasn’t been registered to a homeless shelter about two months before the bombings started.”

“Not havin’ a place to live could be a stressor,” Jonouchi suggested.

“Any important dates that you found?” Daiki asked.

“No sir,” the hacker sounded disappointed in himself. “There aren’t any other kinds of records with this guy aside from the occasional fine for arson.”

This was surprising.

“How did he manage to pay them off if he’s homeless?” Kaiba finally spoke up.

You could hear the sound of Ootogi rapidly typing away on his keyboard.

“Apparently he made some friends. Their names are Valon and Rafael. They all met at a homeless shelter and run a motor-bike repair shop together that’s doing really well.” 

“That could explain where he got the engineering skills needed to build bombs,” Daiki said. “Keep searching Ryuji, thank you.” He hung up and then pocketed his phone.

“So, what now?” Mokuba asked. “We already know who the bomber is, why don’t you just go find him on the street and arrest him?”

“Because we don’t know what kind of stuff he has on him,” you responded. “For all we know he could have strapped a bomb to himself, we can’t risk arresting him like that.”

“Then what _are_ you going to do?” Kaiba asked with an irritated edge in his voice that you rolled your eyes at.

Daiki ignored him, and you loved him for it.

“I want Jonouchi, Honda, and Yugi to go interview Valon and Rafael. See if they heard from Amelda since the bombings began. Anzu, work with the press and PR, make sure none of this is given to the press.” He turned to you, “I want you, Ryuji, and the Kaiba brothers to set up a list of important dates. Soichiro said that November fourth is an important date and it’s only two days away.”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Kaiba fold his arms over his chest.

“November fourth is the day Kaiba Corporation will be releasing its new gaming console, the Kaiba Cube.”

Mokuba suddenly snapped his fingers, alarming mostly Yugi but causing you to slightly jump.

“I’ve got it! Seto, on that day we usually hold a Memorial Service for the victims who were killed by Kaiba Corporation back when Gozaburo was in charge.”

Now it all made sense: Amelda was feeling that Kaiba was overshadowing the importance of the victims with his new console. And in all honesty, you couldn’t really blame him for having this sort of reaction.

You slowly crouched down and rested your face in your hands, letting out an inhuman noise as you processed the revelation. God damn, this man was so fucking stupid sometimes. Daiki held his face in his hands as well- he was just as over this as you are.

“What makes this particular year so special that he has to do this _now_?” Anzu asked while ignoring you and Daiki having an existential crisis.

Seto grunted.

“Fifteen years ago, on November fourth I took over the Kaiba Corporation, I shut down all of the weapon manufacturers and ended the wars the company was involved in. We began to hold a memorial service every year since then.”

“And you didn’t stop to think about the importance of the day that your console would get released??” Jonouchi asked, his voice raising as it usually did when he got angry.

“When you’re as busy and successful as Kaiba Corp., you tend to forget important dates,” Kaiba snapped back. 

You felt his eyes wander over to you but you ignored him in favor of remaining in your crouching position. You took a deep breath through your nose and held your hands together, holding them to cup your nose and resting your thumbs under your chin as you blankly stared at the wall.

“Well, that’s certainly one hell of a trigger,” Anzu said. “Having lost your brother fifteen years ago and having that memory be wiped away by the same company who killed your family.” She looked at Kaiba and shrugged, “honestly, I can see why he’s doing it.”

Kaiba scowled in response, but Daiki, as per usual, became the voice of reason once he recovered.

“Let’s not focus on who’s to blame. Instead we _ALL_ need to remain professional and stop Amelda as a team.” Just then his phone rang and he quickly answered it. “Daiki. ...yes. ...I see. ...yes, thank you for letting us know.” The older man’s face grew solemn and he turned towards the rest of the group. “Soichiro has just been attacked. He’s being driven to the hospital right now.”

“What??” Everybody else joined in on the chorus.

Daiki looked at his phone before showing it to everyone.

“This is how they found him.”

You gasped at the grizzly photo. Soichiro was splayed on his desk with his shirt ripped open and exposing his chest. Carved into the flesh of the unconscious man’s chest was the word “traitor”. Oh god, there was so much blood. You felt a shudder rip down your spine and goosebumps rose on your arms as you gazed at the picture.

“He’s changed his MO,” Jonouchi noted quickly. “Why is he carving his victims all of a sudden? Hell, he didn’t even _have_ victims before now!”

“It means he’s devolving,” Daiki answered urgently.

“Wh-what does that mean?” Mokuba seemed really shaken up by the photo, the poor kid.

“It means that he is becoming unorganized,” Yugi answered quickly. “Look at how jagged and messy these cuts are. This is his first time doing this and he’s acting on an impulse. See how he carved “traitor” into Soichiro? It means that Amelda knows Soichiro gave him away to us. What are the rest of The Big Five members doing?”

“From my understanding, they are accompanying him to the hospital.”

Kaiba snorted.

“That’s surprising.”

“Wait,” Jonouchi began, “could Amelda still be in the building??”

Your team members, Mokuba, and, surprisingly, Kaiba immediately looked to Daiki for orders.

“Honda and Jou, you take east. Yugi and Anzu, you take west. I’ll take Mokuba and go south,” Daiki turned to you as the agents all grabbed their guns from their holsters, “You go with Kaiba and go north.”

You knew better than to protest and nodded at your orders.

“Fine,” you heard Kaiba’s cold voice say. “Let’s go. Don’t expect to be able to tell me what to do though.”

It took you every fiber of your being to resist shooting him and you instead forced yourself to stick with him.

“Move out,” Daiki ordered, and your team separated.

You pulled out your gun and wielded it cautiously, then you glanced over to see Kaiba casually strolling next to you.

“Don’t you have a weapon or anything to protect yourself? How are you so casual about this?”

Kaiba only grunted.

“I’m sure that my elite security team has already taken care of the intruder.”

You scoffed.

“Yeah, and they just let Amelda come in and attack Soichiro. Our KEY WITNESS, mind you!”

Kaiba remained silent as the two of you hurriedly moved down the hallways. You pulled out your flashlight and shined it into empty rooms in order to carefully examine each room. You suddenly heard your phone ring and you were quick to answer it, putting it on speaker so Kaiba could hear as well.

“What’s up?”

“Amelda’s gone, Ryuji caught him on camera leaving the building a few minutes ago.”

“WHAT?” You and Kaiba asked incredulously.

“Calm down,” while it should have been a suggestion, the way Daiki said it made it seem like he was ordering you. “Amelda seems to know the layout of this building well, Ryuji is going through any footage of him entering the building.”

Kaiba was glaring at something and whirled away from you before slamming his fist into a nearby wall. The noise caused you to look back at him, but it didn’t startle you like it used to back when you two first started dating.

“How the _HELL_ has he been able to get in and out of Kaiba Corp. without my knowing about it.”

You stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to say; and knowing him he would probably snip back at you no matter what you said.

“...do you want us to head back then?” you eventually asked.

You heard Daiki sigh over the phone.

“Yeah, let’s meet back up in the office.”

You cringed when you realized that you had to herd Kaiba back into the meeting room your team had set up. You hung up your phone and took a breath before facing your new-found challenge.

“...come on, we gotta head back.”

He didn’t say anything, nor did he move from his position against the wall. You rolled your eyes and walked towards him.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. We still have time before the fourth, we can catch Amelda before then.”

Kaiba turned and glared dangerously at you. _Oh shit_. You stood your ground and stared back at him as he swiftly came up to you.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

You stood straighter and looked him in the eye.

“I’m talking to Seto Kaiba, the president of the Kaiba Corporation gaming company, to be specific. If you want to find Amelda, you need to get over yourself and fucking _cooperate_.”

You glared at each other for a few more beats of silence until he finally relented. Letting out an annoyed ‘hmph’ he swiftly turned on his heel, his ridiculous coat billowing behind him, and sulked down the hallway as professionally and quickly as he could. You took a breath in order to restrain yourself from slamming your face against the wall as you walked a few meters behind him.

You made it back into the office last, and upon making it back you saw Kaiba sitting next to his rather shaken brother. Concern etched your features as you moved across the room to Mokuba, much to the dismay of Kaiba.

“Are you alright Mokuba?”

His eyes were wide, he looked pale, and you could hear him breathe deeply in order to slow his racing heartbeat.

“Amelda was in here,” his voice was barely above a whisper. “And he attacked so suddenly. How?” He looked at you with pleading eyes, “how did he get in? How did he know about Soichiro?”

You pressed your lips together, you didn’t have an answer for him, but Honda spoke up.

“Amelda was able to hear everything because of this.” The spiky-haired brunette held a statue in his hands that you remembered seeing in Soichiro’s office. When Honda removed the statue’s head, it revealed a beeping camera as well as a tiny microphone. “Ryuji was able to detect it. He says it’s a really powerful device despite it being so small.”

You and your team curiously observed it.

“Do you think Soichiro knew he was being spied on?” Anzu asked.

“It’s possible,” Daiki affirmed. “It could help explain Soichiro’s behavior during the interrogation and why seemed to have ‘given up’ towards the end.”

Your team nodded in understanding. Jonouchi plopped himself into one of the expensive office chairs and folded his hands behind his neck.

“So, whaddya want us to do now boss?” 

“Stick to what we originally planned,” Daiki answered easily. “Jonouchi, Honda, and Yugi, go interview Valon and Rafael. Ryuji and the Kaibas set up a list of important sites Amelda may try and bomb. Anzu will still talk with the press and PR" He then gestured to you, "we will go to the hospital to interview Soichiro and see what he remembers about the attack."

Your team grunted tiredly and moved to set about your assignments. Fuck, this case was gonna wear you out.


	7. Presenting a Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you guys like this chapter, it was pretty tough for me to write (-_-)'

You and Daiki had to borrow a car from the Domino Police Station so that you two and Jonouchi, Honda, and Yugi could do your separate jobs. Daiki slid into the driver’s seat while you occupied the passenger’s seat.

“I’ve got the address to the hospital pulled up on my phone,” you said as you fastened your seatbelt.

Daiki nodded as he did the same and started the car, and the ride was filled with rather tense silence. You hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours due to the mountains of paperwork you had to go through, so to say that you were exhausted with this already fast-paced case was an understatement. You hadn’t even been on this case for a day and your team had already uncovered much more than you’d expect. You were honestly just glad that you could have some time away from Kaiba; being around that man was absolutely draining.

“What exactly was your relationship with Seto Kaiba?”

You whipped your head back to your boss at the unexpected question.

“Uhh, we dated for a few years in high school...”

“What was the extent of the relationship? Were you two fairly close?”

You frowned, wondering what your boss’s intentions were.

“I dunno, I guess we were pretty close- as close as you can get with Kaiba.”

“Were the two of you intimate?”

Okay, now you’ve had enough.

“Where are you going with this, Daiki?”

“I need to know more about the type of person Seto Kaiba is and why Amelda would want to take revenge on him.”

You shifted a bit and nodded, that made sense.

“Well, Kaiba and I met in high school. He was, rather _IS_ , a dick. We met through a professional orchestra that brought together a bunch of high school students to play together. Kaiba and I were stand partners, and since I didn’t go to the same high school he did I had to go over to Kaiba Corp. a lot to practice with him. I got close to Mokuba easily and he wanted me around the mansion more often; he’s actually the one who pushed the two of us to be a couple.”

Daiki nodded.

“What was the relationship between Gozaburo and Kaiba?”

You frowned and stared at the road ahead of you, momentarily forgetting that you had to give directions to the hospital while talking about Kaiba.

“From what I understand Gozaburo was hella abusive to Kaiba, wanting him to be the heir of Kaiba Corporation after being forced to adopt him and Mokuba.” You let out a quiet and humorless laugh, brushing some hair out of your face before you continued talking. “Gozaburo fucked Kaiba up: holding him to ridiculous standards, making him work and study languages and strategies an adult should know when he was a child, threatening to return him and Mokuba to the orphanage if he didn’t jump through every hoop Gozaburo set up for him.” You turned to look at your boss. “Have you seen that Kaiba almost exclusively wears turtlenecks?” Daiki nodded. “It’s because Gozaburo made him wear a dog collar while privately tutoring him, _torturing_ him more like.”

Daiki blinked at your raised tone of voice, but understood why you grew so emotional.

“And then he killed himself, right in front of Seto,” you ran your hands over your face, suddenly very tired. “Seto’s a prick, but after I learned all of the shit he went through, it all made sense. Hell, learning about his childhood was what gave me the ultimate push to go into the National Police Agency.”

Daiki nodded.

“Have you noticed that you referred to Kaiba by his first name just now, while back at Kaiba Corp. you referred to him by his last name? From what I’ve seen so far, only Mokuba calls him by his first name.”

You looked at him with a surprised expression.

“Uhh, no. I guess I hadn’t noticed...”

Daiki thankfully changed the subject.

“How much would you say that he knows about the weapons Gozaburo had built?”

You took a moment to scratch your nose, suddenly hyperaware of your words and concentrating on not letting yourself call Kaiba by his first name again.

“Kaiba knew as much about the weapons as Gozaburo did. He had to.”

Daiki let out a hum.

“How far did your relationship go?”

You sighed. Surely your boss has heard worse, right? Plus, he _did_ ask if you and Kaiba had sex earlier during the car ride.

“It started off as a partnership for a project, eventually becoming semi-romantic, and after about a year and a half it became intimate.” Now you understood why Daiki asked these questions, and you quickly turned to face him, “look, Daiki. I can work this case with Kaiba and Mokuba being there, I can keep my emotions in check-“

“When I asked you about handling this case earlier, you said this wouldn’t be a problem for you. Now that you met with Kaiba again, you’re telling me that you’ll keep your emotions in check?”

You folded your arms across your chest and slumped into your seat.

“That’s unfair,” you huffed. “You’ve seen the way he’s treated me, ask _him_ if he’s going to be able to handle working with me. I’ve been nothing but professional, and you’ve seen me do my job despite him being around.”

You hadn’t realized that Daiki had parked the car in the hospital parking lot until now and you were eager to get going; but Daiki turned to you, one hand on the steering wheel and his other arm resting against the console in the middle, giving you what you and the rest of your team called “The Dad Look” and he said your first name softly. _Oh great, I’m going to get lectured._

“I understand that this must be difficult for you, especially with the possibility of his life being on the line as well as the fact that the two of you had an intimate past,” you bit your tongue and let him keep talking. “While Kaiba himself has been childish and petty, we need you to keep a level head.”

“I can do that!” You said as you perked up.

Daiki rose an eyebrow at you, almost challengingly.

“Alright. If you’re so sure, then I’ll be pairing you up with Kaiba for the rest of this case. Starting tomorrow.”

You nearly snorted at the proposal.

“What all will that be including?”

“Anything we need you two to do. Not only will this prove to me that you are professional enough to handle the case, but you will also have the opportunity to showcase to Kaiba that you can do your job and do it well.”

You smirked to yourself. You and Daiki had a sort of father-daughter relationship and the two of you would come up with little challenges for each other to keep yourselves motivated during cases. You held your fist up.

“Challenge accepted.”

Daiki smiled and returned your fistbump.

“Let’s go talk with Soichiro now.”

The two of you got out of the car and quickly made your way through the hospital doors. Upon coming up to the front desk, you introduced yourselves to the young woman sitting behind the desk and showed her your badges. 

“We need to speak with Soichiro Ota, he may have information on his attacker.”

The young woman nodded.

“He is in room number 135, it’s a few doors down the left corridor.”

You both nodded your thanks and briskly walked to the hospital room. Peeking your head in through the doorframe you were glad that the other members of The Big Five weren’t in the room with him, though your heart sank at the sight of the older man. He lay in the clean white bed wearing a traditional hospital gown, from how low the gown was designed you could see that he was wrapped up in a few layers of bandages that were slightly stained with blood, and he seemed to be sleeping. His head was wrapped in bandages as well and you could see a large bump on the side of his head where blood speckled along the bandage.

You gingerly tapped your knuckles against the doorframe. Soichiro opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to look at you. He seemed much more tired now than when you saw him earlier that day.

“Mr. Soichiro-“ you began, but you were cut off by him.

“I don’t want to hear about how sorry you are that this happened to me.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back into the pillows, “just get to the point. You’re here to ask about my attacker, right?”

You pressed your lips together and nodded. You really hated dealing with delicate situations such as this one. Daiki’s phone began to ring and he quickly answered it, leaving you and Soichiro.

“Have any of the other members of The Big Five come to see you?”

“I would be surprised if they did.”

You hummed and nodded, from what you’ve heard of them you didn’t take them as the type to go visit a friend in the hospital.

“Were you aware that Amelda had a camera in your office?” Soichiro nodded. “And he was the one who attacked you?” He nodded again. “How did he get into Kaiba Corporation’s building?”

He sighed again and ran a tired hand over his face as he sat up.

“I gave him access. I was able to snatch a visitor’s card and program it to only get him into the building and into my office.”

You frowned and nodded, glancing back at Daiki as he entered the room; the look on his face was very grim.

“Mr. Soichiro, the other members of The Big Five were on their way to see you.”

You felt it in your gut that Daiki was going to lay down some bad news. Soichiro’s eyes widened in surprise.

“...okay? I’m assuming something must have happened to them on their way here, otherwise you wouldn’t have told me that.”

Daiki let out a breath through his nose, _here it comes_.

“A bomb had been planted underneath the limo they all rode in, and it blew them up right as they were turning onto Domino Square. I’m sorry, but none of them were found alive.”

You cautiously looked at Soichiro and began to analyze his reaction. His reaction was normal at first: he seemed shocked, but then he fell into acceptance so quickly. He lowered himself back down to rest against the bed with his hands covering his face.

_”...thank god.”_

Although he whispered the words you were barely able to hear them.

“You seem...relieved?”

Soichiro chuckled and nodded.

“Yes, I suppose I am. I have been trapped under those members for forty-eight years, and now it feels like a weight has been lifted off of my chest.” He turned he head and looked at you directly, “after everything those bastards put me through, and everything they’ve done to so many people, I can definitely say without any regret: I’m glad they’re dead.”

You felt your blood run cold at those words, it made you feel grateful to have amazing coworkers who you would die for.

“Mr. Soichiro, why would Amelda target The Big Five?”

“The same reason he targeted me, I suppose,” Soichiro theorized.

“To silence you all,” Daiki concluded. “What exactly happened when he attacked you?”

Soichiro shook his head, lacing his fingers together and resting them against his stomach as he once again closed his eyes.

“He didn’t really say anything. He just came into my office a few minutes after you left and attacked me.” He gestured to the bandages that were also wrapped around his head, “he knocked me out with a lamp, and the next thing I knew I was here.”

“Before you fell unconscious, did he say anything? Anything at all?” You inquired.

Once again, Soichiro shook his head.

“Nothing other than calling me a traitor.”

You looked back at Daiki. There was nothing else you would be able to get from Soichiro until he recovered some more.

“Thank you for your time,” Daiki said. “We’ll leave you to get some rest.”

He nodded to the two of you before you left.

“Shit, I knew that he hated his coworkers; but to be glad that they’re dead?” 

Daiki shrugged at your comment as you two climbed into your respective seats of the rented car.

“We need to find Amelda fast, he is running rampant and we have no idea what to do next. We’ll need Ryuji to hack into the cameras in Soichiro’s office and see what happened and if Amelda said anything to him.”

You nodded at your boss’s urgent words as he started the car. As he drove you sat on your phone looking over the photos of the crime scene Ryuji managed to send you.

“They’re definitely from the same kind of bombs used in the building explosions. He's escalating quickly, especially only being a few hours since the last bombing. But why choose to kill four people when he hasn't killed before?”

Daiki paused thoughtfully before answering.

“If I were him and I killed off the primary benefactors to the weapons that killed my family, I would have ended it now; but Amelda hasn’t, and I don’t think he will be ending it before the fourth.”

You frowned.

“There isn’t a note with this one, this may have been an impulse kill to silence The Big Five. But why would he kill off his suppliers? Wouldn’t he need them alive to get access to the bombs?”

“Not unless he has everything that he needs,” Daiki responded. “And with two days left before his endgame, anything can happen.”


	8. An Annoying Disturbance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ***Raises from the dead***  
>  I'M BACK!!!
> 
> I'll admit that I hit a pretty major writer's block and had a bit of a falling out of the fandom. I also was generally nervous about what I wanted to happen within the next few chapters. Generally when I'm writing stories that are more than one chapter and are not oneshots, I come up with the ending first and gradually come up with the rest of the story; but, like I said, I struggled a bit with this chapter just because I didn't want this story to lose its quality just because I wanted to meet my deadline of uploading once a week. I also struggled writing Kaiba's character in this, especially since I didn't want him to be one-dimensional (which I've been super worried about when I re-read this story). Because I want to avoid this in the future as well as give myself time to work on some of my other stories, I will be uploading this story as often as I can, which will hopefully be at least once a month. 
> 
> I appreciate everyone who was so patient, so here is the long-awaited chapter!

The lights in the Kaiba Corporation building were off, save for the lights in Kaiba’s office and the floor your team occupied. Mokuba had been waiting for you two by the front doors and promptly let you two in.

“He blew up The Big Five! They’re all dead!!”

Mokuba was even more distraught now than he was when you left him and it broke your heart. You reached up and pulled him down into a hug.

“I know honey, it’ll be alright,” you reassured. “We’re going to catch Amelda and all of this is going to come to an end.”

“Well you better catch him before he hurts anyone else.”

You shot a glare at Kaiba, who looked far less pleased now than when you left him.

“It’s only been one day, and we’ve found more on Amelda now than we have in past cases,” Daiki stated.

Kaiba only let out a ‘humph’ in response, then he folded his arms across his chest and slowly grazed his eyes over you and your team.

“So, what’s the nerd-herd going to do next?”

You could hear Daiki let out a sigh through his nose, a blood vessel popped out of the side of his head. 

“What we _all_ need to do is get some sleep. We’ll be refreshed and ready to go in the morning.”

Your team let out collective noises of approval and began to follow Daiki out of the building.

“Wait, aren’t you guys supposed to be working tirelessly to find this guy?” Mokuba asked rather incredulously.

“Mokuba,” you said quietly, allowing yourself to show how tired you truly were after such a long day. “The best thing to do now is get some rest. If we overexert ourselves on this case, we won’t be able to perform at our best and catch him.”

Mokuba silently nodded, but Kaiba only let out a huff. Before he could say anything though, you interjected.

“Nothing will get done if we stay awake for the whole case, we would end up driving ourselves and everyone else crazy- trust me, I had to learn that the hard way.”

You offered Mokuba a weak smile and he finally nodded at you.

“Alright, yeah. We should get some sleep too bro.”

You ignored the way Kaiba was looking at you as Daiki came up to him and handed him a card.

“This is the hotel we are staying at as well as our phone numbers.” Kaiba reached out to take the card, but Daiki drew his arm back a bit so it was a out of the young CEO’s reach and gave him a stern glare. “I’m only giving you this information in case you need any one of us, so I suggest you use this information that I’m giving you wisely.”

Kaiba and Daiki glared at one another before Kaiba released a relenting sigh and took the card.

“Understood.”

You and Jonouchi exchanged surprised expressions with each other, neither one of you have ever seen Kaiba challenged by anyone to the degree that Daiki had been or even relent to anyone else. This would certainly make for an entertaining case. Yugi yawned and stretched his arms above his head.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to get some shut-eye.”

The rest of the team agreed, saying their goodbyes to Mokuba before leaving the Kaiba Corp. building.

“What did you guys get from Valon and Rafael?” You asked as the group walked to the car.

Jonouochi attempted to stifle a yawn, so Yugi spoke up instead.

“Not a whole lot. They said that they were really close to Amelda, that he’s a quiet guy who’s always kept to himself. They all knew each other since they were all in high school.”

“Valon also mentioned that Amelda hadn’t been at work for the past few weeks,” Honda added. “That was right when the bombing started. Rafael seems to know that Amelda’s been the one doing all the bombing, but neither of them know where he could have run off to.”

You released an annoyed sigh.

“So it’s back to square one,” Anzu said dejectedly.

“Ryuji, what were you and the Kaiba brothers able to list off?” Daiki asked.

The hacker frowned deeply. That’s a bad sign.

“Kaiba refused to work with me at all, and Mokuba has been so shaken up by everything that’s happened he couldn’t offer me much help!”

The silence around the group was tense as everyone hopped into the car, everybody was annoyed by the fact that they couldn’t get much information. Jonouchi started the van and began to drive, Daiki passed everyone their hotel room keycards, and you began to nod off until Anzu nudged you with her elbow.

“Hmm?”

Anzu pursed her lips out for a brief second, annoyed that you hadn’t heard what she said, before she spoke.

“I was asking you what Soichiro said to you guys.”

You nodded as you yawned.

“Like everyone else, we didn’t get much either. Soichiro admitted that Amelda was the one who attacked him and that he knew Amelda had been spying on him. He also said that he was glad the Big Five are dead now.”

Your teammates were stunned into silence.

“Damn, that’s cold,” Jonouchi commented. “We’re almost at the hotel, so try to stay awake,” he gave you a pointed look, and you stuck your tongue out in response.

Yugi’s head plopped onto your shoulder and he dozed off, poor little guy. You didn’t dare to move during the remainder of the car ride. By the time your team made it to the hotel, your body ached and you gently shook Yugi awake. Yugi snapped up and frantically looked around before realizing that he had fallen asleep. He gave you a bashful smile and his face began to blossom into a light pink shade.

“Sorry about that.”

You laughed awkwardly and waved your hand dismissively as you made your way to the hotel. Daiki had already checked everyone in, so all you had to do was get to your room where your luggage would be waiting. Relief washed over you once you finally opened your hotel room, seeing how clean everything was certainly helped calm your nerves. Your suitcase sat in front of the dresser, which you were thankful for, and you immediately opened it to dig out your pajamas. You tossed them on the bed as you made your way to the bathroom to take a shower, quickly stripping yourself of your clothes even before you turned the water on. While you waited for the water to heat up you observed the bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion that were lined up neatly by the sink. You picked up the tiny shampoo bottle and read the label, it was mint and lavender scented- although it didn’t smell like it when you popped the cap open and took a sniff, crinkling your nose as you closed it and set it back down on the counter. Good thing you brought your own toiletries.

Not bothering to put a towel or robe on since you were in your own private room, you hurried out to the bedroom and grabbed what you needed for your shower and eagerly made a beeline back to the warm shower, locking the bathroom door behind you out of habit. You sighed once you opened the shower door and stepped under the warm water, letting out a pleased hum as the water ran down your body. You gave yourself some time to enjoy the warmth and the steam before you began to set about with actually showering. After about twenty minutes the water became cold, signaling that you should probably stop showering since you didn’t want to stand under cold water. You turned the shower off and reached for one of the clean towels that sat on top of the sink counter, drying your body and hair off as you walked out of the bathroom and to the bedroom. Although once you opened the bathroom door and finished drying your hair with a towel and tossed it into a hamper, you were startled to see someone sitting in the one arm chair in the room while reading a packet of papers and marking them up with a pen.

“KAIBA??”

You quickly slapped your arms over your bare body and practically dove behind the bed in a vain effort to shield your nakedness from Kaiba’s eyes. Kaiba looked up at you and rolled his eyes when you threw yourself on the floor by the bed.

“Grow up, it’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before. Put some clothes on if you’re that uncomfortable.”

You huffed indignantly and reached up for your clothes, dressing yourself at an awkward angle on the floor as you two spoke.

“Why are you in my room? How did you even get in here??”

Kaiba gave you a dejected look, although you couldn’t see it from your position behind the bed.

“I am one of the most powerful men in Japan, it should be no surprise that I can do something as simple as getting into a hotel room.”

You sat up as you pulled your shirt over your head, making sure that your chest was covered as you pulled your undies and pants on.

“What the hell are you even doing here? Daiki said not to bother us unless it was important.”

Kaiba once again rolled his eyes.

“Why else do you think I’m here?” He held out the packet he was looking over for you to take, “I was able to do your job for you and complete a list of the buildings Kaiba Corporation owns.”

You remembered Ryuji telling you that Kaiba refused to work with him, was Kaiba just doing the group task all by himself? _...that sounds about right._ You rolled your eyes as you stood up, now fully dressed in a tee-shirt and lounge pants, and walked up to him to take the papers. You grabbed the packet and scanned over the words, frowning as you noticed exactly how long the list was.

“This list is over twenty pages long!”

“Then you’d better start reading,” Kaiba replied smugly. 

You pinched the bridge of your nose and squeezed your eyes shut.

“Kaiba, this is every Kaiba Corp. building in _Japan_. We only need a list of the buildings in _Domino_. Why didn’t you work on this with Ryuji?”

Kaiba let out a ‘tsk’ and folded his arms over his chest and crossed his legs.

“If Amelda’s planning on blowing up Kaiba Corp. buildings, then I figured that it would be better to be over prepared than under prepared.”

You ran your hands over your face, trying your damndest to resist the urge to strangle the man in front of you.

“Kaiba,” your voice held a harsh edge as you spoke, “Amelda has been targeting Kaiba Corp. buildings in Domino because he knows that’s where you live. You’re the one he’s going after, he’s just building up to the grand finale.”

Kaiba frowned, not liking your tone. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward as he stared at you with annoyed look.

“Right. Remind me why this low-life is targeting me when the man who bombed his town and ruined his life is dead?”

You gave him a challenging glare, folding your arms over your own chest and standing straight.

“He’s going after YOU specifically because rather than acknowledging the victims of Kaiba Corporation’s weapons company like you have done in the past, you are instead using that day to release a brand-new game console, which completely overshadows the tragedy. Imagine being in Amelda’s place and seeing the same company who destroyed your life completely overlook what you were put through and focused on something as trivial as a video game.” You gave him a very pointed look, “I can’t say that I blame him.”

Kaiba blinked as he processed your words.

“Then why bother leaving me those letters?”

You could only shrug.

“He wants your attention, he wants you to focus on the past actions of your company and your game.”

Kaiba let out a sigh. He leaned back into the couch and gazed at you with a softness that was almost alien to you.

“So what do you propose we do about it?”

Once again, you could only shrug.

“I don’t think there is anything you _can_ do about it. With how quickly he’s escalating with his crimes, I don’t think he’ll stop even if you did cancel your game’s release.”

Kaiba pressed his lips together and looked away from you, choosing instead to observe the room you resided in.

“This place is a dump,” he eventually commented.

You frowned and took a look around the room.

“I don’t think it’s bad, this is probably one of the nicest hotels we’ve stayed at.”

“And this is the best the National Police Agency can afford?”

“For all of the budget cuts we’ve been getting, yeah it is.”

You looked at Seto, noticing how he seemed to be conflicted with something.

“Do you want to ask me something?”

He avoided looking at you, his eyes dropping to the floor. You took a moment to admire his appearance. He seemed to have gained some muscle from what you could see through the outline of his shirt. His eyes were that same royal blue that were beautiful to look at, so long as they didn’t hold rage or scorn in them. His face held traces of weariness, forcing you to remember that he is a human being with emotions and weaknesses just like anyone else. All in all, the past ten years have been kind to him. The only changes you have gone through was gaining muscle that you hadn’t had previously, growing a harder edge and gaining quite a few scars from six months of training at the Police Academy in Tokyo and the rest of your time on the job.

Seto was observing you as well, and you accidentally made eye contact with him. He seemed to be daring you to hold his gaze, and you obliged.

“You’ve certainly changed since the last time I saw you.”

You scoffed, crawling onto the bed and sitting cross-legged so that you were at least comfortable when talking with him.

“The same can’t really be said for you though.” You paused and took a moment to observe him before you continued speaking, “how’s Mokuba been handling this?”

You heard Seto take a breath as he adjusted himself in the chair.

“As a boy who’s been kidnapped so often, he’s surprisingly rattled by this case.”

You nodded, and you couldn’t really help but smile at his words. While Mokuba had been indeed kidnapped several times in the past, Seto had always been there to rescue him. It eventually became a bit of an inside joke the brothers shared.

“I could imagine. There is a difference between kidnapping someone to get to you and directly threatening you. I’m sure he’s just worried about your safety.”

Seto let out a quiet ‘humph’.

“I’ve always managed to keep him and myself safe for most of our lives, he certainly doesn’t need to be worried about me now.”

You frowned. You have always known Seto to be an incredibly independent and self-reliant man, so you had an idea of how difficult this case must be on him when he has to rely on the help of others rather than just himself. You leaned forward and lightly placed your hand on his knee. He looked at your hand and gave you a questioning look.

“I understand that this must be difficult for you, but you have to trust my team. We have dealt with people far worse than Amelda with very few repercussions, we’ll catch him.”

Seto glanced between your hand and you for a moment, his eyes lingered on your hand briefly before taking it in his own and standing up.

“I believe I’ve bothered you for long enough,” he took his hand back in order to fix his shirt.

You let out a small laughed and watched his retreating form, but he hesitated as he grabbed the doorknob. He said your name so softly you weren’t sure if he even said it until he looked over his shoulder and back at you.

“I know I can trust you.”

And with that he left. Your mind swirled as you settled yourself into the bed for the night, a giddiness you hadn’t felt in a long time bubbled up inside you and you were barely able to shut your eyes for the sleep you so desperately needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for this chapter being so short, but I promise that next chapter becomes a little more juicy-shit is going to hit the fan yo!!


	9. Unexpected Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shows up 15 minutes late with Starbucks*  
> I cannot apologize enough for not updating this story sooner, I've been dealing with a lot of general stress on top of my computer being a shit and not working properly (hnnggg!). I hope you guys like this chapter, it kinda gets the plot-ball rolling a little more and I'm excited to get back into the swing of writing this story!

Even getting a little less than six hours of sleep, you woke up feeling refreshed. You sat up in the hotel bed, stretching your arms high above your head and sighing when you felt your joints pop. As you went through your morning routine your mind wandered back to Kaiba visiting you, and you couldn’t help the smile that came to your face when you thought about him saying that he trusts you. You finished getting dressed, making sure you have all of your equipment, and made your way out the door where almost everyone waited in the hallway.

“Good morning!” Anzu said, though she still looked tired and she rubbed at her eyes occasionally.

You responded with a smile.

“Honda’s gone to make sure Jonouchi’s awake,” Ryuji told you as you noticed that the two were missing. “He hasn’t been responding to any texts or calls, so Daiki gave him his master key to make sure the mutt’s awake.”

“I told him to set an alarm, I’ve already called him five times,” Daiki grumbled to himself as he pocketed his cellphone. “If he isn’t out here in five minutes, he’s suspended.”

“I’m ‘ere, I’m ‘ere!!”

_Speak of the devil_

Jonouchi and Honda quickly made their way into the hallway. Anzu checked her watch before letting out an annoyed huff.

“That’s great, and here I was hoping that we’d have enough time to grab a quick breakfast before leaving.”

“Unless we send Jonouchi out to grab it since he made us wait for him,” Yugi suggested as he gave his best friend the side-eye.

“All in favor of Jonouchi getting us breakfast, say ‘aye’,” Honda called out. 

Everyone but Jonouchi held their hands up and said ‘aye’, and the blonde just slumped over.

“That’s fair, I guess.”

You snickered as your team migrated to the elevator.

“Any news on Kaiba Corp.?” you asked. “There haven’t been any new bombings or anything while we were asleep, have there?”

Daiki shook his head just as the elevator appeared.

“Nothing new so far,” he said as you all stepped into the elevator, “but there’s only one more day left until the release of the Dogma. Remember, no news isn’t necessarily good news. We need to be on our toes for anything that may be suspicious.”

“Well that’s a given,” Ryuji mumbled, Honda elbowed him harshly in his side for his sass.

“What’s on the agenda for today then?” Yugi asked.

Daiki folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the elevator wall as he thought for a moment.

“Anzu, I want you to make an announcement to the press releasing what we know of Amelda so far. The rest of you will help me give Amelda’s profile to the police officers in Domino. After that we will need to scout any areas that Amelda may strike next, I will give that assignment to Jonouchi, Honda, Kaiba, and you, each with different teams of the bomb squad,” he looked over at you, which you returned with a stiff nod. “And in the meantime, myself, Ryuji, Anzu, and Yugi will be on call in case Amelda does strike. This is where we have to play the waiting game, we don’t know where or when he will plant his next bomb.”

Your team nodded as you walked out of the elevator, quickly leaving the hotel and eagerly making your way to the van. It was chilly outside when you left your hotel, the tall buildings were silhouetted against the pinky-orange sky that came with the sunrise. You let out a sigh and you could see the ghost-like puff of your breath.

“Has anybody given any more thought about why Amelda would cut ‘traitor’ into Soichiro?” Yugi asked as he hoisted himself into the large van. “We all can at least agree that it’s out of character for a bomber, and something about this isn’t quite settling with me right.”

You paused for a moment as you climbed in through the other door after Honda and Ryuji stepped in, sliding into your usual seat between Yugi and the door once you shut it.

“You’re right. Bombers relatively stay within the realm of explosions and pyromania, this is a whole new can of worms in Amelda’s psyche.”

“Maybe it’s general rage that Amelda has always had for Soichiro,” Jonouchi suggested while starting the van, to which Daiki nodded.

“That’s possible, especially considering Amelda was a generally problematic child. He’s growing more sadistic, possibly wanting to make Soichiro suffer.”

“But he’s been raving about making Kaiba suffer, hasn’t he?” Ryuji voiced in from his seat in the back. “Kaiba has already said that he doesn’t care all that much about The Big Five, so Kaiba isn’t really suffering very much right now.”

You let out a thoughtful ‘hmm’.

“Keep in mind that he also escalated to killing off the other members of The Big Five,” Daiki said, twisting in his seat a bit to face Ryuji. “They are the last members from Kaiba Corp. who worked under Gozaboro, this may be Amelda’s way of foreshadowing his end game rather than directly making Kaiba directly suffer.”

You all nodded in agreement. Jonouchi let out a sigh as he switched on his turn signal.

“I can’t imagine what’s goin’ on through Kaiba’s head. I’m glad I haven’t really had to interact with him all too much, which is surprising really.”

You let out a humorless laugh.

“Last night he emailed me this twenty-page list of all of the buildings that Kaiba Corp. owns in Japan,” you lied.

Ryuji let out a snort.

“You’re kidding,” Honda said, sounding exasperated. “You didn’t actually read it, did you?”

You scoffed as you looked back at him.

“Of course I didn’t! I told him to narrow down the list to the buildings that are in Domino and went back to sleep.”

“Has he emailed you back?” Daiki asked.

You felt a nervous chill run down your spine as Daiki gave you his all-knowing look. Why is it that you feel like he already knows everything? You shook your head.

“He hasn’t yet. I told him to hand me the list today when we see him so that we can narrow the buildings down further in person.”

You could only pray that you hadn’t given yourself away and that you had a good enough poker face to keep Daiki’s skeptical look at bay. Your boss only replied with a ‘hmm’ as he turned back to face front and you inwardly sighed in relief. The rest of the ride was quiet, and you took the time to look out the window and take in the scenery of the city. It wasn’t long until the enormous Kaiba Corporation building came into view and Jonouchi parked the van. Letting out one last yawn you opened the door and slid out of the car, everyone else following you out and closing the doors. The weather certainly became a little warmer, and the sky was mostly painted with warmer pinks and oranges with bits of blue peeping through as the sun began to rise a little more. 

You stopped looking at the scenery and made your way towards the entrance of the building along with your team, glad to be in the heated building once you finally made it inside.

“Good morning guys!” Mokuba seemed to have been waiting for you, judging by how quickly he greeted you. Everyone barely got the chance to mumble a greeting in return before Mokuba spoke again, “anything new on Amelda? Do you guys have an idea of where he’ll strike next?”

“Mokuba, they’re human beings. Not mind readers.”

You warily looked at Kaiba, who gave you a passive glance. He didn’t seem to acknowledge anything that happened last night, which is good, you supposed. Mokuba seemed a little indignant and placed his hands on his hips.

“I know that! I was just wanting to know if they found anything new about this guy.”

Yugi let out a laugh.

“Let’s head up to the office so that we can discuss our plans for the day, yeah?”

Kaiba nodded in agreement and swiftly turned towards the private elevator they have been using previously. The walk to the elevator seemed like it took forever when it actually only took maybe thirty seconds. You avoided looking at the older Kaiba brother while Anzu filled him in on the plans for the day, but that didn’t mean that he was going to avoid looking at you as you all stepped into the elevator.

“Why are we always paired up together,” he asked while gesturing to you, suspicion in his voice.

You felt your heart pound nervously at his words. YOU knew why you two were constantly paired together, but nobody else other than Daiki knew the reason. Was everyone else starting to get suspicious too? What did your teammates think of you always being paired with Kaiba? They couldn’t possibly think that you still have feelings for him, do they?

“Because she’s the only one who can actually tolerate working with you,” Jonouchi bluntly replied, making you snort as relief washed over you.

Kaiba gave the blonde a sour look and simmered into quiet anger when nobody objected. The elevator dinged and Kaiba briskly left as soon as the doors opened. Something suddenly felt...off, and it wasn’t because of Kaiba’s pouty mood.

“Kaiba, hang on.”

The tall man stopped in his tracks and stared at his slightly ajar office door. You shot a glance to the secretary’s desk, noticing that the normally chipper young lady named Akiko wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Your gut was telling you that something wasn’t right and you rushed to stand in front of Kaiba while you began to free your gun from its holster.

“Woah, what’re you doing??” Mokuba asked with panic raising in his voice, only to be hushed by his older brother.

The rest of your team seemed to pick up on your unease and began to pull their guns out as well, Anzu stepped in front of Mokuba to guard him as they all slowly left the elevator. You held your gun up, ready to shoot if you needed to. You looked back at Daiki, silently asking for permission to approach Kaiba’s office, and when he gave you a firm nod you walked up to the door.

“National Police Agency, I am armed,” you called as you opened the door all the way with your foot- but you stopped dead in your tracks once you stepped into the office. “Don’t let Mokuba come in here!”

You slipped your gun back into its holster, unable to take your eyes off of the sight before you. Kaiba’s usually neat and tidy office was now a complete disaster, with his potted plants smashed and papers scattered all across the room. And Kaiba’s body guard, someone who you knew he considered to be someone akin to family, sat in the chair behind the desk. 

All you could see from your angle was blood staining his white shirt.

Running up to the man you saw that Isono’s shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his chest with the word ‘Repent’ cut in large letters over a majority of his flesh. The body guard must have put up a hell of a fight considering the bruises and wounds that were scattered around his body. You heard a couple of members from your team come into the room behind you as you rushed to Isono, his sunglasses weren’t on his face and were thrown to some corner of the room.

“My god,” Yugi whispered.

“What happened?” Mokuba sounded frantic.

“Shhh, it’s alright,” Anzu sounded like she was attempting to soothe the poor kid. “Isono has been attacked.”

“Is he still breathing?” Daiki asked.

You quickly checked his pulse.

“He’s alive, but we need an ambulance to get here quickly. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

Honda quickly whipped out his phone and dialed for an ambulance. You sent a reluctant look to Kaiba, who had been standing at the doorway with an unreadable expression on his face. You reached into one of the pockets of your pants and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, something that you’ve learned to always keep on your person at all times after years of experience, and quickly began to clean the wounds with some tissues that were at Kaiba’s desk after pulling the gloves on.

“Do you have a first-aid kit here at all?” you asked without looking up at Kaiba, more concentrated on stopping the bleeding than making sure Kaiba heard you.

You pressed a handful of tissues onto the wound, the crimson fluid stained the thin white paper rapidly. Sparing a glance upward you saw Kaiba approach his desk and wordlessly dig out and open a first-aid kit from one of his drawers, pulling out some proper dressing and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. You removed the tissues and tossed them into a nearby trashcan before grabbing another handful and doused them in the hydrogen peroxide, quickly sweeping the liquid over the still bleeding wound.

“What do you need me to do?” Kaiba’s voice came out coldly, and you didn’t look up at him as you responded.

“I’ll need you to cut up that roll of gauze so that I can start dressing the wound. When is the ambulance getting here?” you called back to your team.

“They should be arriving here soon,” Honda called back. “The dispatcher said they will be here in a few minutes.”

Daiki calmly watched from the doorway as you did your best to care for the unconscious man.

“The word that he chose for Isono is strange, don’t you think?” Yugi asked.

“Whaddya mean?” Jonouchi responded.

“Well, the phrase repent is usually used in religion, specifically to atone for one’s sins and is primarily tossed around in Christianity. From what we know of Amelda, I would think that he is very far from being a religious man. And on top of that; why write such a word on a body guard?”

“Amelda must have known that Isono was close to me,” Kaiba replied as he tore up strips of gauze and tape for you. “Isono was the only other person who was with myself and Mokuba from the moment Gozuboro adopted us. He was much more of a father figure to us than that man ever was.”

You quickly pat the area on Isono’s chest dry and grabbed a piece of gauze, lining it up carefully to cover the large wound before grabbing one of the pieces of tape and placing it along the edge of the gauze. You repeated the process until the wound was completely covered. Red dots began to seep through some of the bandage, but with the ambulance coming soon you figured it would be enough for now. You quickly shed off your gloves and stood up. Kaiba gingerly reached out and touched Isono’s hand before settling back and watched you carefully just in case you had any more instructions for him.

“The paramedics are here!” Ryuji called.

You and Kaiba quickly stepped away from Isono as three paramedics rushed in with a stretcher, which made Mokuba more and more nervous.

“Seto, is he alright??”

“He’ll be fine, Mokuba,” he called back in reply, but he still had a cold edge to his voice that betrayed his anger.

“What about the assistant?” Jonouchi asked. “Where is she?”

“I found her,” Anzu called, her arms around the hunched-over woman as they hurried down the hallway. “She was vomiting in the bathroom, possibly from poisoning by Amaleda.”  
Tears streaked down the young woman’s face, which was flushed and covered in a thin sheet of sweat. You weren’t able to hear anything that happened to her.

“Let’s get her on an ambulance as well. Can you tell me what happened?” One of the paramedics asked you as the other two carefully lifted Isono onto the stretcher.

Everything had happened so fast and you shook your head a bit as you attempted to recall everything.

“Yeah, sure. We all came in and found him unconscious and bleeding. I checked his pulse and it was alarmingly slow.”

The paramedic nodded, beckoning you to follow her as she followed the other two who began to push the stretcher.

“How was his breathing?”

“Steady,” you replied. “He had bled a lot, I stopped a majority of the bleeding by applying pressure and cleaning up the wounds.”

You barely registered Mokuba worriedly calling Isono’s name and Kaiba stopping to talk to him briefly. Once they made it into the elevator Kaiba managed to slip in before the door closed, but the paramedic seemed to ignore him in favor of talking to you instead. She glanced back at Isono, who had an oxygen mask on over his mouth, and looked at the wound that had bled through enough to make the word ‘Repent’ show through the gauze. The paramedic cringed before turning back to you.

“Did the wound look infected at all? What was his body temperature at?”

You pressed your lips together and thought briefly before you could answer.

“He was relatively warm, but still below average body temperature,” Kaiba quickly cut in. “He was most likely attacked by the same man who has been going around and planting bombs all around Kaiba Corp. buildings.”

The paramedic nodded at Kaiba.

“That probably means that he was attacked earlier this morning and had been sitting there to bleed out for a while.” She then focused her gaze on you, “it seems that you were barely able to save him, had you waited a little longer he would have been wheeled out of here in a body bag.”

You felt yourself grow pale at her statement and you stiffly nodded. The elevator dinged and you all practically ran out of the Kaiba Corp. building and to the ambulance, the paramedics’ shouting eventually became white noise and everything around you seemed to blur as you climbed into the ambulance with a deadly silent Kaiba. The only thing you could hear was what Kaiba muttered to himself:

“That bastard is going to pay for this.”


	10. The Cute Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hi!  
> There's some mushy-gushy stuff in this chapter between the reader and another character who isn't Kaiba. :P

The ride to the hospital was quiet and tense, despite the nurses doing their damndest to avoid Isono going through shock. You and Kaiba crouched at the foot of the stretcher, watching as the nurses worked on the unconscious man. When the back doors to the ambulance finally opened, you both leaped out and ran along with the paramedics and doctors as Isono was wheeled in. The shouting that was around you turned into white noise as you noticed Isono start to stir.

“Mister...Kaiba...”

He began to reach up for the oxygen mask, he struggled to open his eyes and he seemed unfocused.

“Isono,” Kaiba replied quickly.

“You were attacked by Amelda,” you spoke urgently and quickly. “You were unconscious when we found you. Do you remember anything that happened before you blacked out?”

Isono continued to stir, fighting with himself to stay awake.

“I..I tried to fight him..I’m so sorry Mister Kaiba.”

“It’s alright Isono,” Kaiba reassured. “You did everything you could.”

A doctor suddenly blocked your path, stopping you two from running into the hospital with Isono.

“I can’t let you two come in here, I’m sorry.”

Kaiba only nodded stiffly, anger still seethed in his eyes.

“Take care of him.”

He then stiffly turned and walked to the entrance of the hospital. You hurried to catch up with him and pulled out your cellphone to call Daiki as you jogged.

“Daiki.”

“Hey,” you sounded a bit winded from jogging to keep up with the tall and lanky Kaiba. “We just made it to the hospital. Isono started to gain consciousness as he was wheeled in, he confirmed that Amelda attacked him.”

“That’s what Akiko said as well,” Daiki said, talking about Kaiba’s assistant. “We reviewed the footage, confirming that he did poison her while she wasn’t looking. She will be alright.”

You and Kaiba were walking to the waiting room as you talked with your boss. You quickly plopped yourself into a chair while Kaiba paced madly.

“Did she say anything about how Amelda was acting?”

“All she said was that he was strange and gave her the creeps. It looks like Isono had ran into Amelda outside of Kaiba’s office and started the fight.”

You nodded as you repositioned yourself on your seat so that your legs were crossed.

“Do you think that Amelda may be cutting words into chests on a whim? Between Isono and Soichiro, it seems that none of these injuries are premeditated.”

You heard Daiki make an affirmative grunt on his end of the line.

“That’s what we believe as well. Mokuba’s on his way to the hospital, how’s Kaiba holding up?”

You glanced up at the taller man, who was now rather aggressively talking with one of the nurses behind the desk where family members can check in.

“He’s...being Kaiba, I suppose would be the best way to describe it.”

Daiki grunted again.

“Let me know when Isono wakes up, and I’ll be sure to keep you posted if anything here changes as well.”

“Understood,” and with that you hung up and pocketed your phone.

The day had hardly begun and you were already exhausted from all of the shit you’ve had to do so far. On top of that, you were really looking forward to Jonouchi buying the team breakfast. Your stomach grumbled loudly and cramped up almost painfully, letting you know that it will not be ignored. Once Kaiba finally walked away from the poor nurse, he practically threw himself into the seat next to you. You _were_ about to ask him if he wanted to go with you to grab something for breakfast, but the look in his eye made you hold your tongue. 

Once again, the silence around you was tense and nerve-rattling.

“Don’t you have something you should be doing?”

You were only slightly startled when Kaiba barked his question at you. You glared at him, though he didn’t see you since his gaze was fixed onto the floor.

“I am doing something, I’m waiting for Isono to be awake enough to tell us what happened to him when he encountered Amelda. There’s no use in making a bad situation worse.”

He didn’t look at you, just continued to glare at the carpet. This forced you to fall back into uncomfortable silence.

“...thank you.”

You whipped your head up to look at him.

“Come again?”

He still didn’t look at you, but his gaze was less intense.

“You saved his life, like the doctor said,” he spoke begrudgingly, but you felt pride swell up in your chest at hearing Kaiba appraise you rather than insult you. “You worked quickly and efficiently, even under stress.” He finally shifted himself in his seat so that he stood straighter and looked you in the eye as he spoke, “perhaps I’ve underestimated you after all.”

You resisted the urge to pull out your phone and tell your team about what had just happened- Seto Kaiba was ACTUALLY praising you for your skills! Instead you smiled at him and said nothing, this time the silence that fell over you two was more comfortable and less tense. It was about fifteen minutes before one of the nurses called out Kaiba’s name. The two of you walked up to a rather young doctor, who nodded as his chocolate-brown eyes scanned over the charts he held in his hands and brushed a stray strand of white hair behind an ear. He looked up at you and smiled. The doctor was surprisingly cute.

“Mister Kaiba, Agent,” he bowed at you two. “My name is Doctor Ryou Bakura, Isono has been assigned as my patient and I can assure you that he has my upmost care.”

“How is he?” Kaiba spoke gruffly, a contrast to the rather soft-spoken and British doctor.

“Isono is awake and well now, if you’d like to go see him,” the doctor didn’t even finish her sentence before Kaiba took off in the direction of his body guard’s room. 

You offered the doctor an apologetic smile as you both walked down the hallway. 

“What exactly were the extent of his injuries?”

Ryou scanned the charts in his hands. 

“It looks like he has a mild concussion, a few fractured ribs, and a bit of blood clotting around the wound. But with some blood-thinning medication, he should be good as new.”

He took a moment to observe you. “I heard from some of the paramedics and nurses that you saved this man’s life.”

You grinned bashfully at him.

“Uh, yeah, but I didn’t really do much. All I was able to do was stop his bleeding and clean the wound.”

The young doctor smiled at you.

“And what you did was precisely what you needed to do.”

You felt your face heat up a bit as you two entered Isono’s room, settling into your respective roles of doctor and police agent as you approached Isono. Mokuba was already here, sitting next to his brother and holding Isono’s hand in an almost vice-grip. Kaiba had given you an odd look before glancing between you and the doctor, then settled his attention back to Isono. You pressed your lips together grimly when you saw the body guard laying on the bed, wearing a hospital gown instead of his normal suit with his head wrapped up in bandages from the concussion. You could faintly see his wound from Amelda through the relatively transparent fabric of the hospital gown. He was stirring when you entered the room.

“How are you feeling Isono?” Ryou asked as he went about checking the machines the older man was hooked to.

The man responded with a grunt as he slowly sat up on the bed.

“I’ve felt worse, but I’ve definitely felt better.” 

Ryou chuckled. Isono slowly took in his surroundings, his eyes landing on you, Ryou, and the Kaiba brothers.

“...Mokuba....Mister Kaiba...”

Isono quickly tried to sit up, but Kaiba gently placed his hands on Isono’s shoulders and lowered him onto the bed.

“Take it easy, Isono,” Mokuba said.

Isono glanced around, his nearly black eyes darting around the hospital room before they settled on the bed.

“Isono, do you know where you are?” Ryou asked softly.

The man nodded.

“I’m in a hospital because...because...” his hands flew down to the hospital gown, pulling it open to reveal the gruesome wound. Isono looked at it before releasing a defeated sigh and leaned against the pillows. “Because of Amelda.”

You and Ryou exchanged worried looks before you approached him.

“I know that you have a concussion and that you may experience some memory loss, but could you tell us what exactly happened this morning when you were attacked by Amelda?”

Isono closed his eyes and paused.

“Take as much time as you need,” you gently coaxed.

Isono nodded.

“No, I can remember.”

“I’ll go ahead and give you some privacy,” Ryou said as he stepped out of the room.

You nodded at him and gave him an appreciative smile before he left.

“Start from the beginning,” you guided in a soft voice. “What were you doing this morning?”

“I was making the rounds, as I usually do in the mornings. When I went to Kaiba’s office, I saw that Akiko was gone. I should have known that something was wrong, I should have gotten there sooner...”

“You couldn’t have known that Amelda was there,” Kaiba said reassuringly.

“What happened when you got to Kaiba’s office?” you asked.

Isono pressed his lips together in thought, his eyebrows scrunched together a little.

“...everything seemed normal when I first entered, but the little bastard snuck up on me. I tried to fight him off, but somehow he had the upper hand.”

You and Kaiba looked at each other. You knew that Kaiba’s body guards were essentially military-grade trained and were very elite. To hear that Isono was taken down by Amelda certainly was very alarming.

“How?”

Isono frowned and stared down at his lap.

“...I’m not entirely sure. I think he hit me with something.” he then looked up at Kaiba, with tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, “I am so sorry Mister Kaiba.”

Kaiba placed a hand on his body guard’s shoulder, a gentle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“You have no reason to apologize. Just be sure you get enough rest and heal properly.”

Isono looked touched, but he shook his head.

“But the bomber-! Who’s going to act as your body guard?”

“I can take care of that,” you said, rocking back on your heels a bit. The three men gave you incredulous looks, “what?”

“You want to act as Seto’s body guard?” Mokuba asked.

You shrugged.

“Why not? I’m already assigned to be his partner, so I might as well be his body guard while I’m around him.”

Kaiba looked you up and down, and you were ready with a retort for whatever he had to say.

“...I’ll allow it.”

You felt yourself deflate, this was certainly unexpected.

“Bro, you’re serious?” Mokuba sounded hopeful.

You looked at Kaiba, hoping that you didn’t look eager. Kaiba only nodded.

“Like she said, she’ll be around me often enough.”

You grinned.

“Right! So once we leave the hospital we should probably find out where the two of us are going to scout.”

Once again, Kaiba nodded. He was suddenly becoming easier to work with when compared to yesterday. You then pulled out your phone and dialed Daiki’s number.

“This is Daiki,” came his usual monotone greeting once he answered.

“Hey, it’s me. Isono’s going to be fine, where do you want me and Kaiba to go?”

Your boss paused for a moment before speaking again.

“Go to Kaibaland, you’ll need to close down the park and evacuate everyone as quickly and calmly as you can. I want you to scourge the entire park for any bombs, Yugi and Duke believe that he may strike Kaibaland next.”

You looked over at Kaiba, who was watching you carefully, and glanced at Mokuba and Isono.

“What about Mokuba and Isono?”

“Anzu and I are already on our way to the hospital. Jonouchi and Honda are going to another one of the tech centers that sells Kaiba Corp. games there, and Yugi will be staying with Duke and the main Kaiba Corp. building. Bomb squads are going to be with you and Jonouchi and Honda.”

You gave a firm nod.

“Understood, stay safe.”

“You too.”

You ended the call and slipped your phone in your pocket, Kaiba stood up.

“What’s happening now?”

You sighed, somehow you knew that you and Kaiba were going to be the ones who went to his theme park.

“You and I are going to be closing down and evacuating Kaibaland, then we’re going to search the area for bombs with a bomb squad.”

“What about me?” Mokuba asked, looking eager to help. “What do you want me to do?”

“Daiki and Anzu are on their way here. They’ll give you an assignment once they arrive.”

Mokuba nodded, though he had a mixture of nervousness and excitement in his eyes.

Kaiba stood next to you and you were a little apprehensive about driving in a car alone with him for however long it would take. Considering the possible traffic you might be stuck in, you figured that you’d be with him for at least an hour- and that would be an hour too many!

Kaiba held the door open for you and gave you an incredulous look.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

“Bye bro!” Mokuba called after you two.

“Please stay safe!” Isono added.

You waved at the two of them over your shoulder as you quickly went down the hallway. You passed the station that Ryou was at and you nearly jumped when he called your name out, he quickly fell into step beside you.

“Say, I was wondering if after all of this is over, you would maybe want to meet up for coffee some day?”

Your heart nearly jumped out of your chest, it had been a long time since anybody has asked you out! You could practically feel Kaiba roll his eyes and saw that he quickened his pace towards the door, but you slowed down and paused as you began to pat yourself down in search of a pen.

“Yeah, that sounds great! Lemme just...” you tugged out your pen and held it up with a triumphant laugh, which made the doctor chuckle. “Here,” you held your hand out for his arm, which he gave you reluctantly. You quickly scribbled your phone number on the pale flesh of his forearm, ignoring Kaiba when you heard him call your name. “There! Shoot me a text and we can set up a date!”

Ryou’s smile was absolutely radiant and it melted your heart.

“Awesome! I’ll, uh, see you later then?”

You smiled and nodded.

“Definitely!”

You heard Kaiba impatiently call your name again, but you quickly waved over your shoulder at the sweet young man and took off down the hall. You ignored the glare Kaiba was giving you as the two of you quickly left the hospital, meeting Anzu and Daiki along the way.

“Here, you might want a car,” Daiki said as he tossed the keys to you, which you caught flawlessly.

“Thank you much!”

Anzu looked at you, confusion written all over her face.

“What’s got you in such a chipper mood?”

“She was asked out by Isono’s doctor,” Kaiba spoke coldly before tugging you along by your arm. “Come on, we need to get going.”

You were practically jogging to keep up with him, damn his long legs.

“I’ll text you the details!” you called to Anzu over your shoulder.

You had no trouble finding the sleek black car that Daiki had borrowed from Domino’s police station, no doubt, though you quickly inspected it before getting in.  
“What are you doing?” Kaiba asked as he watched you get on your knees and search under the car.

“Making sure the car hasn’t been tampered with,” you replied, “can’t be too careful, especially with bombers.”

Kaiba only grunted and waited for you to stand up and unlock the car. Despite being forced to be in a car with Kaiba, you wouldn’t allow him to sour your mood as you got into your respective seats and started the car.


	11. Divide and Conquer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Kaiba spend the entire day searching the park for any bombs...but when everything goes to hell, Kaiba is forced to make a very dire decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of time jumps in this chapter, but it's safe to say that this is the climax of the story. This took a while for me to write because I wanted to get Kaiba's thinking process and character JUST right- you'll see what I mean when you read the chapter ;)
> 
> Some warnings for this chapter: violence, threats, and mild gore.

You and Kaiba sat in silence during the drive so far; when you attempted to turn the radio on, he immediately shut it off and continued to glare out the window. Unable to take it anymore, you decided to be the bigger person and break the silence.

“Alright, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t respond, because he’s such an adult. You only rolled your eyes.

“Look, something’s upsetting you. I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but in order to find Amelda we need to cooperate and trust each other.” You paused, “goddamn that sounds cliché.”

You were slightly startled by an alert from your phone, which sat in the cupholder of the car. Glancing down at the screen you saw it was a text message notification from an unfamiliar number. Did Ryou text you? Once you were at a stoplight, you quickly grabbed your phone and entered your passcode to read the text.

_From: Unkown_

_Hey! This is Ryou, Isono’s doctor. Just figured I should text you so that you have my number! :)_

You couldn’t help the rush of giddiness that flooded through you. It had been almost half a year since you’d been on a date with anyone, so you suddenly felt like you were a schoolgirl again. You quickly messaged him back.

_You:_

_Well hello there, thanks for the message! ^_^_

“The light’s green.”

You glanced up from your phone and saw the green traffic light. You placed your device back in your cup holder and quickly went back to driving, though you couldn’t stop smiling and your heart leapt when you heard your phone go off again.

“...who’s texting you?” Kaiba asked as he began to reach for your phone.

Before he could lay a hand on your precious cellular device, you quickly snatched your phone.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

Kaiba gave you an incredulous look before it settled into his usual resting bitch-face.

“You gave that doctor your phone number, didn’t you?”

You looked him in the eye as you slipped your phone down the front of your shirt, where it nestled itself comfortably in your bra.

“Maybe I did.”

Kaiba took a moment to glance down at the new rectangle that was on your chest before looking back at you. The look in his eyes was indescribable, he looked almost angry? You chose to ignore it in favor of concentrating on the road ahead of you.

“Why?”

You rolled your eyes again.

“Gee, I wonder. Why would two adults exchange phone numbers and send each other texts? Could it be because they like each other and maybe want to go on a date? The possibilities are absolutely endless!” The sarcasm was dripping from your voice. 

You were hanging around Kaiba too much and his asshole-ness was rubbing off on you.

You heard your passenger take a deep breath in through his nose, but he didn’t say anything else. This made you glance over at him curiously.

“What does it even matter to you? We dated ten years ago, my dude. Don’t tell me you haven’t been on any dates since we broke up.”

An awkward silence suddenly confirmed your suspicions, why would it surprise you? You chose to hold your tongue. At the next light you pulled out your phone and read the new message from Ryou before quickly adding his number into your contacts.

_From: Ryou_

_Lol it’s no trouble at all_

You slipped the phone back into your bra and drummed your fingers against the steering wheel, a new form of annoyance washing over you. You let out a bitter laugh.

“Ohhh my god, you’re actually _jealous_ of him??”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Kaiba shift in his seat to face you, you could practically feel the temperature in the car decrease with the cold glare he was giving you.

“What are you prattling on about now?”

You knew that it was entirely unprofessional, but you couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that spread across your face.

“You’re jealous because I gave my phone number to Isono’s doctor.”

You were entering dangerous territory, but you couldn’t care less. If Kaiba was going to be pushing all of your buttons and annoying you, then you could do the same to him. Your companion paused for a few seconds before he let out a ‘tch’.

“Please, don’t flatter yourself.”

You glanced over at him, but finally decided to keep quiet for the remainder of the drive. You snorted a little when you saw the amusement park enter your sights.

“I haven’t been here before, why didn’t you ever take me here when we were dating?”

Kaiba frowned at you.

“You never asked me to.”

“Because you never mentioned it,” you replied. “I remember that you made surprise visits here all the time, and you always took Mokuba with you. Why not me?”

You felt a pang of hurt surge through you at the memories, suddenly remembering that Kaiba had never really taken you out into the public with him anywhere. You noticed that Kaiba seemed to shift in discomfort as you parked the car.

“...we’re here. How do you want to go about with evacuating the park? We can’t exactly say that there may be a bomb planted somewhere in the park, now can we?”

You didn’t look at him, instead concentrating on opening the door and getting out. You pretended to smooth out your pants and blouse as you stood up while avoiding making eye contact with Kaiba.

“You tell me, you’re the one who owns this park and has had to evacuate a park before.”

It was late in the afternoon when you made it to the park, and you would have to call the bomb squad when the park was mostly emptied to avoid panic among the people. You quickly made your way to the main entrance, walking far ahead of Kaiba- though with his long strides he was quickly able to catch up with you.

“We’ll say that there’s a gas leak,” he suggested as the two of you walked through the gates. 

He stepped into the small building where people who were selling tickets to get into the park were. They seemed surprised and confused at Kaiba’s sudden presence.

“M-Mister Kaiba! What are you-“

“Don’t sell any more tickets for the rest of the day,” Kaiba explained coolly, only lingering by the doorway and not actually entering the room. “I want you to shut down the systems and prepare to evacuate the park.”

You looked at the younger staff members, all of them seemed confused by their boss’s orders.

“Sir? Why would you want to do that?”

Kaiba frowned at the young man who questioned him before he reached for the radio that sat on the counter near him.

“Attention all Kaibaland employees. We will be evacuating the park, and it needs to be done so as efficiently and effectively as possible. If people have a problem with it, assure them that they will be reimbursed for their tickets and will be receiving a seasonal pass for the inconvenience.”

He didn’t even wait for a response after his order; even here, his orders were absolute and were not to be questioned. Kaiba left the ticket booth and began to make his way to the center of the park, but you took your time to look around the park. You had never been here before, and you could not help but laugh at the several Blue Eyes White Dragon themed rides, toys, and even food that was all over the park. You remember your time in high school, where Kaiba was low-key obsessed with some game called Duel Monsters and had a very strong affinity for a monster called the Blue Eyes White Dragon. While you had to admit the monster was cool, it was more fascinating for you to learn that the very stoic and serious Seto Kaiba had an interest in something so childish. 

As the park began to slowly evacuate you wandered around for a bit, curious to see what sorts of attractions and goodies the theme park had to offer. Your empty belly rumbled at the various scents of food that surrounded you and it didn’t take you too long to whip out your wallet and buy as much food as you wanted, quickly filling a plate you were handed with taiyaki, takoyaki, dango, mochi, and various other meats on skewers that were all shaped and named after popular Duel Monsters cards. Kaiba was not impressed when he came back to see you with so much food.

“We’re supposed to be evacuating the park, not getting something to eat.”

You huffed indignantly as you stuffed another dango into your mouth.

“I haven’t eaten anything all day, I’m hungry. And besides, it’s not like l can’t multi-task or anything.”

The man only rolled his eyes at you while you quickly finished off your plate of unhealthy snacks. He made off back towards the entrance of the park, ignoring the crowd that called his name and begged for autographs and photos. You followed along behind him, lightly clinging on to the back of his jacket so that you wouldn’t get lost in the crowd. You nearly forgot that being with Kaiba often included being surrounded by paparazzi and fans.

“How often do you need to evacuate the park?” you asked, once you were out of the crowd and far away from people who could overhear your conversation.

Kaiba huffed and folded his arms over his chest.

“It’s extremely rare.”

You nodded in understanding and waited for the park to completely empty in an area that was a little more isolated and off-to-the-side so that you two wouldn’t be noticed. It took about two hours for the park to completely evacuate of all its guests and employees, leaving just the two of you. You immediately called bomb squad, who arrived promptly. Once a few vans pulled up towards the entrance, you and Kaiba walked up to greet the squad leader and introduced yourself.

“I’ve been told about the kind of bomb we’re looking for,” the leader said. “We’ll divide into five different squads, each taking up a different area of the park.”

You nodded, looking over his shoulder behind him and taking a look at the large number of officers.

“And the other squadrons are with the other agents and their respective locations?” you asked.

“That’s correct ma’am,” the leader replied.

“Good,” you said with a nod. “Let’s get going then.”  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
You and Kaiba had scoured the amusement park for two hours with the bomb squad. It was quite late at night and to say that you were exhausted was an understatement.

“Ma’am,” one of the bomb squad leaders addressed you, “we have not been able to find any sort of bomb here in the park, even with our dogs.”

You gave him a tired nod, watching as the bomb squad began to pack up their equipment into the van.

“Well, this was certainly a waste of time,” Kaiba said with resentment in his voice.

After having to deal with him _all day_ , you were almost at your absolute breaking point.

“Kaiba, today wasn’t a waste of time. We needed to scout the area and make sure that we know where Amelda’s next bombs are going to be.”

Kaiba rolled his eyes and scoffed.

“Yeah right, like you’ve been so much help so far.”

Now you reached beyond your breaking point.

You sharply turned to face him, your hair whipping around you slightly, and glared harshly up at him.

“Look,” you began angerly, “dealing with a case like this takes _time_ and _patience_ , neither of which you have. If you want to try and solve this by yourself, go the fuck ahead. But don’t forget that Mokuba is the one who called us because you had your head so far up your own ass that you wouldn’t have even noticed the serious level of the threat until it was too late. Without my team, there would more than likely be people who would have _died_ and we would have been sent here to help anyway.”

You and Seto continued with your glaring competition for a moment longer before you let out a breath.

“I’m gonna go. You can come with me or you can call your driver or something, I don’t really care anymore.”

You pivoted around and only took a few steps forward when you suddenly felt a massive wave of heat hit your back along with a nearly deafening explosion sound that sent you and Kaiba flying several meters away from where the two of you had previously stood. You couldn’t see where Kaiba had landed, but you were overwhelmed with the feeling that your head was split open from the hard contact it made with the sidewalk before eventually blacking out.  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kaiba struggled to open his eyes through the pounding in his head and the ringing in his ears, but he forced himself to and took in as much of the site as his bleary eyes allowed him to. He could faintly hear the sound of sirens somewhere in the distance, but everything felt as if he were underwater. He slowly sat up, pressing his hand against his forehead and felt some blood running from a wound. _Great_. He slowly blinked a few times before he looked around, growing anxious and annoyed at how his eyes didn’t work properly. He squinted at the shapes that stood out in contrast with the shadows and the scattered fires that surrounded them. As he looked around he expected to see your unconscious form somewhere next to him; but as his senses slowly came back to him, he saw that you were nowhere in sight.

“...shit.”

Though on wobbly limbs, Kaiba managed to get himself standing and began to stumble around looking for you. He called your name out, but you did not give him a response. As his vision came back more and more, Kaiba was able to make out some red words that were painted on one of the nearby game stalls. He didn’t remember seeing anything like that earlier...

‘She’s this way!’

He couldn’t deny the sickening feeling of panic that surged through him as he recognized the handwriting to be Amelda’s. He moved as quickly as his body would allow him to, following the several signs that Amelda had apparently made for him. These signs led him to a Toon-Town themed area of the park and into a Dark Rabbit themed fun-house. Kaiba rolled his eyes, _how cliché_.

He hurried into the funhouse, quickly pulling out his phone and using its flashlight to look around the empty attraction. His footsteps echoed eerily in the empty hallway and he kept his eyes out for any more of Amelda’s signs.

“‘Almost there!’“ Kaiba read aloud to himself.

Kaiba quickly turned the corner, looking around and nearly dropped his phone out of shock at what he saw.

He couldn’t believe it. 

Right in front of the Blue Eyes Toon Dragon shaped doorway, Amelda was slumped over a figure that Kaiba couldn’t see. Amelda seemed to have heard him come in, as he perked up and looked at Kaiba over his shoulder. A cold anger began to overtake Kaiba when he heard Amelda chuckle.

“Well hello there, Kaiba. It seems that you recovered sooner than I thought you would.”

Kaiba couldn’t see your figure, he only focused on Amelda.

“Amelda,” his voice came out in a dangerous growl.

The young man looked down at your figure, almost as if he was considering something. Amelda’s slate-colored eyes flashed maniacally as he took the knife that he had in his hand, grabbed your unconscious form, and pressed the blade to your neck.

“Take one more step and I’ll slit her throat.”

Kaiba glared at him, rage nearly boiling over at the fact that he was not prepared for this kind of situation.

“Let her go,” Kaiba said lowly, “your target is me, leave her and everybody else out of this.”

Amelda hummed thoughtfully, though he wasn’t actually considering his words.

“I don’t think so. I’m having so much more fun watching you suffer. Now,” Amelda took a step towards the exit, “what will you do now? Will you chase after me, or let this poor agent bleed out and die?”

Kaiba felt his face drain of color and his blood run cold. _Just what is he planning to do_...

“Amelda-“

“Your choice starts...now!”

It all happened so quickly.

All Kaiba saw was the gleam of a knife in the moonlight and the disgusting sound of metal slicing through flesh accompanying the hard sound of a body hitting the floor.

Amelda’s footsteps and laugh echoed down the hall as he left. Kaiba had a chance to catch the man responsible for all of the destruction of his buildings.

But then he looked at you. You laid there on the ground, still completely unconscious though you began to sputter and gasp for breath from the new wound. Your blouse was bloodied and ripped open, the words ‘Too Late’ were carved into your chest. You certainly would not be given a painless death if he left you there.

Kaiba had a decision to make: save you, or chase after Amelda and save his company. And he had to make it fast.


	12. An Intimate Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wake up in the hospital to some surprising news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for this coming out so late, I had a bit of trouble writing for Kaiba while making sure that it's all in character and making sure it all still makes sense. However, the last few chapters should be getting out fairly quickly just because there's a lot of action going on in them, which are chapters that I have been planning on writing pretty much since I started this story.
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I hope that it kinda softens Kaiba's character just a smidgen without making him seem too out of character.

...

...

“...guys, she’s awake!”

You opened your heavy eyelids to a bright white ceiling. Blinking rapidly so that your vision could settle a little more, you slowly took in the environment you were in: your entire team had surrounded you and the bed you were apparently in, though you knew you weren’t in your hotel room considering how itchy and uncomfortable the sheets and blankets were, and you could hear beeping coming from your left.

“Well good morning, good to see you’re awake!”

You slowly turned your head to the familiar sounding voice that belonged to Isono’s doctor. Ryou gave you a gentle smile as he scribbled down some of the notes from the monitor you had been attached to.

“...w...w-where-“ you were made suddenly aware of how much your throat began to hurt as you tried to speak, like the burning sensation that came with moving a muscle that had a cut on it.

“Ah, ah. Try not to say anything, love,” Ryou said as he turned to you. “Your throat has been slit, but luckily the cut didn’t damage your vocal chords or any major arteries. It was a superficial cut. It’ll take some time for you to completely heal properly, so you need to rest.”

You urgently sat up, ignoring the dizziness that came to your head, and touched your throat. Panic began to flood through you once you felt the bandages that were taped onto your neck and you quickly pulled the collar of your hospital gown and peered down at your chest. An overwhelming sense of nausea hit you like a train when you saw the rather large bandage that covered your chest.

“...what does it say?” your voice was barely above a whisper, which was all you could manage without wincing too much from pain.

You looked to your right, which was where Daiki had been sitting. He frowned a little bit and looked you in the eye.

“...he carved ‘Too Late’ into you. He assumed that he would have killed you.”

You numbly accepted this, leaning your head further back against your pillows and closed your eyes.

“...what happened?”

Your eyes were closed for a moment longer, and you opened your eyes to see that everyone was staring at Kaiba, where your eyes eventually landed as well. Kaiba stared at you passively.

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Mister Kaiba,” Ryou spoke sternly, “she has suffered from a concussion, she won’t be able to remember very much about everything that happened last night.”

Kaiba sent a glare to the white-haired doctor and relinquished a sigh. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows against his thighs and lacing his fingers together so he could rest his chin on top of them. Now he avoided looking at you, staring harshly at the wall across from him.

“Before you could leave Kaibaland, a bomb that was underneath the lid of a manhole nearby had detonated. The impact of the blast knocked the both of us out for a while.” His face curled into an angry sneer. “...as you know, Amelda had gotten to you. He had taken you to the Toon Town themed funhouse, then he gave me the option of either chasing after him and letting you die, or to save you and letting him get away.” When Kaiba finally looked at you, his expression was unreadable. He settled himself back against his chair and folded his arms against his chest, “the choice that I made should be obvious.”

You let the information sink in for a moment, very aware of the feeling of everyone’s eyes practically burning into you as they watched you with concern and worry laced into their features. You vaguely remembered the feeling of someone tug you into their arms and carrying you away, and then you were hit with the familiar sensation of a knife slicing into your throat. You lightly clutched at your wound and stared into your lap, overcome with a sudden feeling of numbness.

“...could you guys leave me and Kaiba alone, please?”

You didn’t bother to look up as everyone else filed out of the room, though you felt Daiki pat you on the shoulder before leaving. The silence between you and Kaiba was rather tense, as it usually was.

“...why?”

You heard Kaiba move out of the chair he was currently occupying to sit in the one that was closest to you in order to hear your raspy voice a little better.

“Why what?” he spoke gently, which surprised you.

You felt your throat suddenly clog up, but you swallowed the lump down.

“...why did you let him get away?”

You mustered enough courage to look at him again, but you still could not figure out what he was thinking. He rose an eyebrow at you.

“Was I supposed to let you bleed out?” he asked, he almost sounded offended. “You were already going into shock by the time Amelda got away, it would have been pointless for me to run after him in the dark so that you could die a slow and painful death by yourself. So, I chose you over Amelda.”

You frowned at him.

“...you don’t seem very happy with your decision.”

Anger finally flared to life behind his royal blue eyes.

“Don’t assume that you can read me so easily. I’m angry at Amelda for being cowardly and using you as a ploy to escape. Do you really think that I don’t care about you at all?”

You were suddenly very surprised to hear this coming from Kaiba.

“...wh-what do you mean?”

Kaiba rolled his eyes and reached for a cup of water with a straw that had been sitting on a side table next to your bed.

“Here,” he handed the cup to you. “Stop talking for a bit and drink.”

You took the cup and watched him carefully. He suddenly seemed off, out of character even, and it was really weirding you out. You had never seen him act or really say anything like this to anyone other than Mokuba- not even during the three years you two had dated. You held your tongue and waited for him to continue speaking as you sipped your water.

“...how are you feeling?”

You cleared your throat after you finished drinking, setting the cup down on your nightstand before looking back at Kaiba.

“...I’m as good as I can be, I guess.” You ran your hands through your hair, suddenly growing antsy and frustrated. “I don’t have time for this, we need to catch Amelda!”

Before you even had the chance to properly sit up, Kaiba’s hands were immediately on your shoulders and were pushing you down with surprising gentleness.

“Did you hear what the doctor said to you at all? You’re not going anywhere,” he said sternly.

You frowned at him, but relinquished and allowed yourself to sink back into the pillows. You glanced back down at your new wounds and frowned at them distastefully.

“Aww man, I hope these don’t scar.”

Kaiba gave you a rather incredulous look.

“Out of all the things you have to be worried about, you’re more concerned about whether or not those cuts will _scar_??”

You looked back over at him and blinked a few times Suddenly you tugged your nightgown over your head, revealing your mostly nude form under the scratchy cloth. You had never really looked at yourself in a full-bodied mirror for very long, but you were very aware of the amounts of scars that you have gotten from the job so far. Kaiba’s eyes widened a little bit as he looked over your body and took in the battle scars you have.

“Do you wanna know how I got each of these?” Your voice was slightly starting to come back, and it hurt a little less to talk now. You didn’t bother to wait for a reply before you pointed at an ugly scar just to the right of your naval, “this was the first wound I received on the job. We were chasing down some asshole and then he decided to go ahead and shoot me.” You moved on to another scar that was right in the center of your abdomen, “I got this one from being stabbed this one time. This one is from being stabbed another time...huh, I’ve been stabbed a lot,” you muttered to yourself. “This one on my arm was actually from some psycho who bit me, had to go and get a tetanus shot IMMEDIATELY afterwards. Uhhh, most of these other ones are cuts from knives and shit, I’ve been bitten by dogs, shot at, broken some bones, cracked a few ribs-“

You were startled a little bit when you felt Kaiba’s hand roughly grab your chin, tilting it up so that you could look up at him. His face held no traces of amusement and he said your name very sternly.

“This is why I didn’t want you doing this job in the first place.”

You frowned at him.

“Kaiba, I _chose_ to do this job, and I wear these scars with pride. If you’re worried about a bunch of dumb scars, you should see Jonouchi. He has the most out of all of us.”

Kaiba sighed, his breath caused some hairs on your face to move a little.

“You dumbass,” he muttered to himself, you rolled your eyes. Kaiba squeezed your face a little tighter, forcing you to look back at him and squishing your cheeks. You found it a little difficult to look into his eyes, considering how intense they were. “Why do you still do it? Why do you continue to risk your life like this?”

You blinked at him, very confused about Kaiba’s concern for you _now_.

“Because I know that I can help people,” you responded easily.

Kaiba glared at you for a moment longer, then he released his hold on your face. He sat back against his chair and released a ‘tch’ sound.

“Alright, fine. You want to help people, just like girl scouts do. But who the hell would you be helping if you died?”

Now it was _your_ turn to glare at _him_.

“Why are you so against my job? You have been adamant about me not working as a National Police Agent ever since we were in high school. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, and it’s something that I enjoy doing. What’s up with you?”

Seto had been pressing his lips into a tight and thin line. His eyes had grown cold and he silently observed your scar-littered body. He scooted his chair up a little closer to you and began to trace over the scar you got from when you were shot. The contact made you jump slightly and your breath hitched, but you allowed him to continue to trace over your scars with his curious fingers.

“...this isn’t exactly what I was worried about, these scars. I’m just worried that someday, someone would actually succeed in killing you.”

Although you were touched by his words, you grinned at him and gave him a thumbs-up and a wink.

“It’s gonna take a lot more than knives and guns to kill me!”

Kaiba scoffed. He took another moment to observe your body before drawing back and settling himself into his chair, folding his arms over his chest and crossing his legs.

“You should probably put that hospital gown back on,” Kaiba suggested. “Unless you’re planning on flashing your staff, which I’m sure HR wouldn’t appreciate.”

You rolled your eyes and forced yourself to sit up as you reached for your discarded gown.

“It’s not like they haven’t seen this before,” you muttered to yourself.

“I beg your pardon?” Kaiba asked, sounding a little flabbergasted.

You gave him a nervous smile.

“That’s a story for a different time,” you said quietly.

You were startled out of your thoughts when you heard knocking on your door, and before you could react the door was opened.

“I apologize for interrupting, but I really need to-“

Ryou had just entered the room, walking in on your mostly naked form. Time seemed to stand still for a moment as you realized the awkward situation your doctor had walked in on.

“Uhh, hello doctor...”

Ryou glanced between you and Kaiba, who had been sitting calmly in his chair, before settling back on you and smiling with a cute little blush on his face.

“Well hello. You might want to put that gown back on though.”

You laughed nervously and quickly settled the article of clothing over your body before the rest of your team and Mokuba walked back into the room.

“What’s up guys?” you asked, trying to ignore the previously awkward encounter.

Daiki nodded at Ryou, who nodded back and left, though not before smiling at you and giving you a wave. You smiled back and waved at him, much to the annoyance of Kaiba.

“Ryuji ran all of the letters that we have received through several of his softwares, and it turns out there was a code encrypted into the letters. When combined together, they tell us the location of Amelda’s final bomb: Kaiba Corporation tower.”

You looked over at Kaiba, who simply nodded.

“I figured that would be his endgame, this guy isn’t very original,” he stated.

Daiki glared at him briefly.

“...which means that we need every officer at the Kaiba Corporation building tomorrow.”

You nodded and began to climb off the bed.

“Right, so what’s the plan then?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapters will be so much fun to write >:)


	13. Hell Breaks Loose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in updating!! I have been on vacation and have been getting ready to move to a new place, so things have been hectic for me right now! I also just wanted to make sure that this chapter was cohesive enough to fall into the rest of the story, and it took a LOT of re-reading the story and making sure that all of the information I was using makes sense with what I've used. LOTS of research had gone into writing this story!
> 
> There's only a couple more chapters left for me to write, and I can't wait because of all that's going on! >:)

Before you could even get a leg out from underneath your sheets, Jonouchi and Honda had hurried up to you and pushed you back down into the bed.

“Woah, you aren’t going anywhere,” Jonouchi said as he pulled the blankets over you.

“I know you had a concussion and everything, but don’t you remember anything that happened to you last night?” Jonouchi added as he fluffed up your pillow. “Ryou here even said that you would need at least a couple of days to recover from everything.”

You admittedly felt dizzy and achy when you tried to sit up, so you allowed your two teammates to push you down. Still, you couldn’t help but feel annoyed by your apparent uselessness.

“I can still help with the case-“

“No.” Daiki said firmly. “You’re off the case.”

The world seemed to rear to a halt at your boss’s words.

“I agree,” Kaiba joined in.

Your throat felt like it closed up and your mouth grew dry, and you sat in your bed opening and closing your mouth like a fish.

“What?” Mokuba asked incredulously, “why isn’t she part of the case??”

Kaiba closed his eyes for a moment, then they opened to glance over at you briefly before they settled back onto Mokuba.

“Because she’s too emotionally involved,” Kaiba said easily.

The pain that you had felt in your throat and chest was nothing compared to the pain of having the man who had belittled you and your job agree to having you off of the case you worked so hard on. Was he beginning to think you were too incompetent? Daiki was the one who initially said you were off this case, did this mean that he doesn’t trust your abilities either? Was this all because of your injuries? You began to grow bitter at yourself, you should have been more careful and avoided the pothole, you should have tried harder to fight back against Amelda when he dragged you away, you should have done _more_ to prove to Kaiba that you could do this job.

“Are you saying you don’t trust me?” you accused.

Daiki’s eyebrows shot up and he looked genuinely surprised by your words.

“Woah, woah,” Honda spoke up. “This doesn’t have anything to do with trust, it’s all about your injuries.”

Daiki paused, and you knew that you had been correct on your assumption.

“...after being nearly killed by this man, I don’t know if I can trust you being in a normal state of mind if you were to confront him. How will I know that you won’t recklessly attempt to shoot Amelda?”

The sharp pin-prick feeling of tears began to well your eyes.

“Test me right now! I’ll do whatever you want, just...” you felt humiliated for being scorned in front of your team, your ex-boyfriend, and his little brother. You were pretty damn certain that Kaiba was wearing the biggest shit-eating grin of his life. “Let me prove it to you, I won’t shoot him when I see him!”

“You’re right, you won’t,” Daiki said plainly as he walked over to your bed, his eyes never leaving yours as he leaned towards you a little more with a bone-chilling expression on his face. “Because I am _ordering_ you to stay here and rest.”

You couldn’t believe this was happening. In the years you have been in this field you have never once been thrown off of a case, even after you were shot. As your breathing began to hitch, you ou felt a sharp pain in your throat which in turn sent you into a heavy coughing fit and made all of the machines you were hooked onto beep loudly. Ryou quickly re-entered the room, just to make sure that you were alright. Daiki gave you an especially hard look that also held some traces of concern.

“You still want to go out into the field like this, barely able to talk or breath?”

You felt your heart drop into your stomach and you tried to ignore the hot angry tears that began to trickle down your cheeks; though whether it was from your coughing or from the sting of not being able to take part in the case that you and others worked so hard to solve, you weren’t sure. Ryou had come up to you and placed a gentle hand on your back, rubbing soothing circles into the sore muscle as you struggled to regain your breath.

“What are you guys planning on doing then?” you asked.

“We’re going to have every officer and member of the bomb squad in Domino at the Kaiba Corporation headquarters,” Daiki explained.

You frowned and crossed your arms over your chest.

“Try and catch your breath, love,” he said soothingly, which was definitely helping you concentrate. “There we go. Now, you suffered quite a lot of damage last night and it’s very important that you take the time to heal properly.”

You looked at him, and his brown eyes were so soothing to you that you almost instantly relaxed back into the bed. _It’s almost like I’m hypnotized by him, what the hell?_. You smiled up at him.

“Thank you.”

He smiled in response to you.

“I’ll be checking in on Isono, let me know if you need anything,” he said gently.

You gave him an appreciative nod as he left the room, and you couldn’t help the amused snort that escaped you when you saw the harsh look Kaiba was giving the poor doctor.

“What will I do? I don’t want to be left out of the loop.”

“We can have Ryuji set up what he can here, just so that you’re here while we work on the case,” Yugi offered.

You smiled at Yugi’s suggestion and settled yourself more into your bed. Mokuba, who had seated himself in a chair near you, reached out and took your hand into both of his own and looked at you with worry in his eyes, the kid looked like a puppy that had just been kicked.

“Have you guys been able to check on Isono?”

Honda nodded.

“He’s remembering more of what happened,” he said, opening a folder he held and digging through the papers it held. “We showed him a photo of Amelda and he was able to to identify him as the attacker. Now we just need you to do the same thing.”

Honda pulled out a photo and handed it over to you.

“Is this the man who attacked you last night?”

Kaiba leaned over to get a look at the attacker’s face, since he had never seen the official photo. Although you couldn’t see it, the look Kaiba gave the photo would have killed Amelda if he were actually standing here.

“That’s him.” He said with venom in his voice.

Daiki nodded at Kaiba.

“Your testimony has been noted,” Anzu said, then she looked to you with gentle eyes and said your name gently.

You took a moment to take in the features of your attacker, your heart dropping to your stomach. The picture you held in your hands showed you the face of a young man who had just barely reached adulthood. His face was pale and held traces of youth, but dark circles framed his steel colored eyes and made them look more cold and empty. His shock of red hair was a mess and jutted out evenly at both sides of his head. The scowl that decorated his features was enough to send shivers down your spine and you felt negative vibes coming from the picture, which you were certain you would have still felt had you not known about his crimes.

This was the face of a man who survived war, you couldn’t forget.

This was the face of a man man who was angry and bitter at an unjust world that he lost everything to.

This was the face of a man who had nothing to lose and nothing to gain. The man who had attacked you so coldly less than twelve hours ago, who slit your throat so casually without batting an eye.

Looking at the photo made you feel sick.

“...yes. This man attempted to kill me last night.”

Honda nodded.

“Thank you.”

You closed your eyes and sunk yourself further into your bed and pillows, trying to ignore how the events of last night had flashed into your mind. You startled slightly when you felt a hand gently pat your leg, but you smiled when you saw Yugi’s attempts to comfort you and placed your hand over his own.

You took a deep breath through your nose.

“When are you planning on executing the plan?”

“We are letting the squadrons know about the plan today, but we’re going to go through with it tomorrow.”

Kaiba nodded.

“And in the mean time?”

“We just strategize any possible thing Amelda could do,” Anzu said. “We need to prepare for every possible scenario just to be absolutely safe.”

Mokuba nodded eagerly, his face showed relief and he bowed deeply to you all.

“Thank you. Really, thank you all. Who knows what would have happened if you weren’t here.”

“Ehhh, I can think of what would have happened,” Jonouchi said casually, though that earned him a harsh smack by Anzu and Honda.

Kaiba was glowering at the blonde, but he decided not to waste his time on saying anything witty in response. He finally stood up.

“Alright. I don’t have time to waste staying here, let’s go back to Kaiba Corp. Mokuba.”

Mokuba stood up as well, but not before giving your hand a comforting squeeze.

“We should get going as well,” Daiki said as he also stood up. “I texted Ryuji, he will be here tomorrow morning.”

You glanced over at an alarm clock that was situated on your nightstand, seeing that it was well into the afternoon and nodded.

“Sounds good.

“I’ll be sure to check up on ya later, okay?” Mokuba said before stepping away to join his brother in the doorway.

You smiled at the suggestion.

“Sure! I would appreciate the company!”

“What, like your doctor isn’t going to keep you enough company?” Anzu said with a teasing wink.

You winked back at her and wiggled your eyebrows suggestively. Kaiba only rolled his eyes.

“Try not to have too much fun. You still ned time to heal, remember?” Yugi joined in on the teasing.

You waved him off.

“We’ll keep you posted on what happens,” Honda said.

You nodded affirmatively and waved at everyone before they closed the door. You plopped your head back against the pillows and released a resignated sigh as you realized that you wouldn’t really have much to do until Ryuji vcame tomorrow, giving you nothing to distract you from your boredom.

“Aww man, what am I gonna do now?”

*****************************The Next Day***********************************

You awoke to the sound of knocking on your door, seeing Ryou and Ryuji through the door frame as the door opened. 

“Good morning!” Ryou said as he walked into the room.

You muffled a yawn behind your hand as you waved to him in acknowledgement. He smiled and gestured to your co-worker.

“You do have a visitor today. Let me just check your vitals real quick and then I’ll leave you to your work.”

You had to laugh when you saw Ryuji carrying several bags of his technical equipment but a bright pink “Get Well Soon!” balloon as well as a ridiculously soft-looking brown teddy bear and a bouquet of brightly colored flowers. The dark-haired young man grinned at your reaction and tossed the bear at you, landing in your lap, and set down the flowers and tied the balloon to the side of your bed as Ryou wrote down your new information.

“How are you feeling today?”

You took a moment to process how you _were_ feeling, having just woken up after all.

“I think I’m better. I feel less groggy and a little more alert.”

Ryou nodded as he jotted something down onto his papers on his clipboard.

“That’s good. It seems that you’re healing well, so you should be getting out of here in two days.” He gave you a cheeky smile, “maybe once you’re all healed up, we could set up a date?”

You blushed almost immediately at the doctor’s suggestion, floundering and turning into a mess as you stuttered nervously. Ryou and Ryuji laughed as you continued to humiliate yourself.

“Y-yeah! Let’s do that,” you said in a defeated tone, feeling your face grow hot out of embarrassment.

Ryou laughed good naturedly.

“Sounds good! I’ll be making my rounds, so you know the drill. Call for me if you need anything!”

He waved as he closed the door, and as soon as he was out of ear-shot you released a groan that sounded more like a dying whale and hid your face in your hands. Ryuji sat himself down into the chair next to you and patted your shoulder.

“Wow, that was about as smooth as chunky peanut butter.”

“I knnooowwww!” you whined as you flopped yourself back against your bed, watching Ryuji pull out some of his techy stuff. “So what all are you going to be doing from here?”

You were vaguely aware of what his job generally was: Ryuji was a very skilled programmer and hacker, so he could get information on anyone at any moment’s notice. His hacking abilities were on par with Kaiba himself, and that was a hell of a compliment considering how tech savvy the young CEO was.

Ryuji opened the laptop he had settled onto his lap and shrugged.

“I dunno. I generally wait around until one of you guys call me for something, but I guess I’ll just find out more information about Amelda and his friends.”

You nodded.

“Have you checked through his medical history for mental illnesses or anything?”

He grunted in response, his fingers dancing wildly across the keyboard and his eyes were glued to the screen. It made you think of Seto for a moment, when he would sit behind his office desk and type up papers, emails, documents, spread sheets, and other things. But when Seto did this, he almost looked like a piano player; Ryuji just looked like a rushed madman.

“There isn’t anything in there besides PTSD and some injuries. Oh-“

You sat up a little more, intrigued by why the hacker stopped his typing.

“What’s up?”

“I just got into his psychology analysis notes, _and_ his adoption papers,” Ryuji sounded almost baffled. “I wasn’t able to get into these last time.”

You scooted over and leaned a little so you could look at the screen with him.

“Why is it all open now?”

Ryuji shrugged.

Maybe because the information wasn’t public? Or maybe because the agency didn’t have a reason to open these files up until now?”

“What all does it say?”

Ryuji shrugged and turned the computer screen towards you.

“I have no idea what any of this means, so you tell me.”

You squinted a little against the brightness of the laptop screen, but when you could make out what the text was saying you pressed your lips together solemnly as you read through the latest psychiatrist’s notes.

“I’m going to go run to the restroom while you read that,” Ryuji said as he stood up.

_Case Number: 239_  
Patient Name: Amelda, last name non-applicable  
Consultation Dated: 19th January 2008  
Initial Date of Patient Consult: 23rd June 2007  
Patient Age: 16  
Gender: Male  
Observing Physician: Dr. Akiyama Hinata 

_STATUS OF PATIENT:_  
-Amelda seems more agitated and antsy today  
-Can’t sit still, squirming  
-Still has same nightmare of losing his brother and mother  
-Refuses to take medication himself, force must be administered 

_TARGET SYMPTOMS:_  
-Aggressive to towards figures of authority and caring figures  
-Is said to have killed a squirrel a few days ago  
-Has alarming interest in fire 

_THERAPY STATUS:_  
-Sertraline seems to make him drowsy and he looks like he has a rash, though he seems unbothered by it. May have allergy, switch to paroxetine  
-Possibly try eye movement desensitization? 

_MENTAL STATUS:_  
-Seems very unhappy  
-Not sad, just angry and aggressive at the world  
-Paranoid when I try and empathize with him – maybe doesn’t understand empathy? 

_OBSERVATIONS:_  
-Still refuses to make eye-contact with me  
-Gave him his Dyna Dude action figure, he seems much calmer and lucid, though he will focus on the figure and not on me  
-Will become VERY aggressive if I take away his Dyna Dude action figure – maybe he connects this to his little brother?  
-After allowing him to play with the action figure and other toys, he seemed much calmer – start adding recreational activities to his schedule  
-Still refuses to talk about what happened in the war – but he understands that Kaiba is the reason why his family is dead – shows intelligence in a dark way  
-He likes to take electronics apart and put them back together – this seems to relax him  
-Dyna Dude figure is a key to calming him down, though he may still be aggressive with Soichiro and attendants 

The adoption papers stated that Amelda’s mother was a prostitute during the time of war, which tends to have a heavy hand in the psychology, and that he was often left alone to take care of his younger brother Mikey, practically raising him. The situation certainly reminded you of Seto and Mokuba: both were orphans, and Seto took care of Mokuba and was almost like a father figure to him.

A sudden realization had hit you.

What if Amelda was targeting Seto not ONLY because Seto was releasing a new game the same date as the memorial, but was also JEALOUS of Seto actually having a younger brother? Or would he kill Mokuba to make Kaiba suffer the way _he_ did? This would completely change his end game and his real goal!

You jumped when you felt your phone go off, alerting you of a message from Yugi.

_From: Yugi  
Mokuba said that he was on his way to go see you, but that was thirty minutes ago and he hasn’t texted me. Is he with you or Isono?_

You scrunched your eyebrows in confusion, where would Mokuba be? The kid hadn’t visited you all day.

_You:  
No, I haven’t seen him._

You abruptly threw your blankets off, tugged out all of the tubes you were attached to, though not without wincing, and hurried out of your room. Your legs were tingling from being asleep, but you ignored the stinging pain and quickly made your way down the hall into Isono’s room. Throwing open the door you found that Isono was sitting on his bed reading a book, completely alone, and seemed startled to see you rush into his room so suddenly.

“Agent, what are you doing here?”

“Was Mokuba here to see you at all today?” You interjected, practically ignoring his question.

Isono gave you a confused look.

“No, he visited me the other day,” he suddenly grew concerned. “Why? Is he alright?”

You frowned.

“We’ll keep you updated, but we think that Amelda may be up to something.”

With that, you rushed back to your room and quickly changed out of your hospital gown and back into your work clothes. You were just about to reach for the doorknob when the door flew open and you were face-to-face with your doctor, who said your name in confusion.

“What are you doing? You can’t leave yet, you don’t have medical clearance.”

 _Shit_ , you thought.

There was no point in lying to him.

“Ryou, something is happening at Kaiba Corporation and I NEED to be there for my team- they don’t know what’s going on-“

“Well, I’m sorry,” Ryou blocked the door and began to guide you back to your bed, “but YOU still need to rest. Your team will be able to handle this without you.”

Ryuji suddenly dashed into the room, panic on his face and he said your name between pants as he caught his breath.

“Turn on the news!”

You and Ryou exchanged uneasy looks as he picked up the remote that sat on your tray and pressed the power button on, then flipped through a couple of channels before the news showed up.

“Breaking news!” The reporter narrated, making your stomach clench into a ball. “We have just received word of a hostage situation over at the famed Kaiba Corporation building. I.t looks like the only two hostages are the Kaiba brothers, Mokuba and Seto Kaiba, the adopted sons of the late Gozaburo Kaiba. Their captor is believed to be the man who has been blowing up Kaiba Corp owned property. We haven’t heard any updates from the National Police Agency, but we do know that the infamous Daiki Oshiro and his team are in the building trying to talk the bomber down. We will be sure to keep the public updated as they occur.”

As expected, your phone rang. You answered with your last name and heard Anzu speak urgently to you.

“Amelda’s got Kaiba and Mokuba!”

“Yeah, I heard,” you said, glancing up at the television screen. “What happened?”

“We got camera footage of Amelda sneaking into the building, dressed up as one of the guards, and he took Mokuba! We think he used Mokuba to get Kaiba into his office!”

“Okay, I’m on my way. Don’t tell Daiki.”

“Wait! I don’t think-“

You quickly hung up, and turned to face your doctor with pleading eyes.

“Ryou, my team’s mission has turned sour and I need to get to Kaiba Corporation and stop Amelda.”

Ryou pressed his lips together and inhaled sharply through his nose. He then reached for a flashlight in one of the drawers and turned it on, flashing it briefly into your eyes for an examination.

“Do you feel any dizziness? Nausea? Is the room spinning?”

You shook your head.

“I feel perfectly fine.”

Ryou examined you for another moment, your heart hammered wildly in your chest as you awaited his next statement. Finally, he sighed.

“IF you feel any sort of head pain or if you vomit, OR if you don’t feel right, come STRAIGHT back here. Understand?”

You nodded eagerly, and he sighed again.

“Alright. You are free to leave.”

You smiled broadly and flung your arms around his shoulders.

“Thank you, doctor.”

Ryou hummed, though he was mostly startled by your sudden hug.

“Just stay safe.”

You drew back and grinned up at him.

“The next time you see me, hopefully it won’t be while I’m in the hospital,” you said with a wink.

Ryou’s cheeks turned red, but he smiled bashfully.

“I’ll look forward to it!”

“Alright, stop flirting. We got shit to do, remember??” Ryuji said urgently.

You nodded urgently.

“Thank you, Ryou.”

The young man nodded, and you and Ryuji took off down the halls, ignoring the shouts you got from the doctors in the hallways, and dashed into the car Ryuji used. He quickly started the car up and sped away. The reality situation that you were about to head into began to dawn on you, and you began to feel your belly pool with dread. You could only hope that you could save Seto.


	14. Time's Running Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooooooooot! It's finally up!! I've actually had this chapter planned out when I initially started writing this story, so it feels good to have finally put it out there for people to read and enjoy!
> 
> I apologize for taking so long to post this chapter, I wanted to make sure that this particular chapter was tense enough, but also making sure that it wasn't super cliche (which is where I struggle the most). As for most of these chapters this chapter is really intense and has a lot of drama in it.

Ryuji pulled in at the front of the Kaiba Corporation and you practically threw open your door and darted to the building, ignoring Ryuji calling your name out. You shoved your way through the police officers and the bomb squad members, flashing your NPA badge as you managed to make your way to the door of Kaiba’s office, though you were forced to sprint up twenty flights of stairs since the officers wouldn’t allow you to take the elevator because of the bomb threat. As you ran up the stairs, you stopped and found something that was basically a blessing from the gods: the Dyna Guy action figure sat, _discarded_ , on the stairs right next to your foot. You immediately snatched it up, filled with sudden energy and determination, and continued to sprint up the stairs. With the action figure, you hoped that you would be able to get through to Amelda and possibly talk some sense into him.

“Goddamn elevator,” you wheezed to yourself as you shoved the door from the stairwell to the top floor, trying to recover as quickly as your body could allow.

You ignored the burning sensation in your legs and ran to Yugi, Honda, Jonouchi, and Daiki who were all standing outside the office, all wearing their bullet proof vests and wielding their guns. Yugi was the first person to notice you and seemed very surprised to see you, noticing that you were fully equipped as well. Yugi saying your name got Daiki’s attention, and he looked over his shoulder at you before he turned to fully face you, a very cold look in his disappointed eyes. You ignored his look and instead spoke out, holding the action figure out to him.

“I know how to get through to Amelda. This Dyna Guy figure is the only thing linking him back to Mikey, remember how Soichiro found him with the figure-“

“You’ll only be putting more stress on him,” Daiki retorted. “If you show him the momento of his brother, it may trigger him and set him off. We have no idea what he’s doing in there, and I am NOT going to send you in there to risk it.”

You gritted your teeth, your frustration roaring to life.

“Daiki,” you spoke firmly, “This may be one of the only things keeping him grounded.”

“Where did you find it?”

You pressed your lips together in frustration.

“I found it in the stairwell.”

Daiki rose a brow.

“So he carelessly discarded the one thing that reminds him of his brother, that may be why he went after Mokuba as well as Kaiba. If you show him the Dyna Guy figure while he is with Mokuba, it may not work at all.” Daiki’s eyes flashed down towards where your wounds were, which were still relatively fresh and wrapped in bandages. “Not to mention, seeing one of his victims alive may cause him to do something worse to you or to the building.”

Your jaw began to ache from clenching it so tightly.

“Seeing one of his victims may make him a little more susceptible,” Yugi pitched in, though he did so hesitantly. “Especially if we consider everything that Amelda allegedly knows about Kaiba, he should know that she was very close to Kaiba. I believe that he would be more willing to listen to her than anyone else, if she plays the empathy card of how Kaiba hurt her.”

Daiki shot a brief glance to the young man, though you saw how Yugi shuddered a little at the look Daiki gave him. Jonouchi and Honda didn’t say anything, deciding to be wise and keeping their mouths shut no matter how much they wanted to stand up for you. Daiki stared harshly off to the corner of the hallway, then took a deep breath before giving you a cold look.

“...I should fire you.”

You felt as though you had been punched in the gut and had the wind knocked out of you. You were never one to disobey direct orders, or to ever get into any kind of trouble with your job. But you couldn’t risk letting Seto get killed when you could prevent it. 

“I know.”

After a few more beats of silence, Daiki finally sighed, though not without giving you a harsh glare.

“Alright. I’m trusting you.”

You nodded firmly, though your heart fluttered happily at knowing that you got to keep your job for now.

“I won’t let you down sir.”

He nodded.

“I want the three of us to go in slowly, starting with myself, you, and then Jou. I want you to take the right, Jou take left, and I’ll take the center. Honda and Yugi, I want the two of you to take charge of the bomb squad. Sweep through the building and make sure Amelda hasn’t placed any bombs elsewhere. Am I understood?”  
You all nodded, and you gave Yugi and Honda a nod before they met up with the rest of the bomb squad. You took your gun out of its holster and took off the safety, making sure that it was loaded before you inched our way to the office door. Your heart was pounding madly and you quickly patted your pocket to ensure that the Dyna Guy figure was still there. You looked to Daiki, who nodded at you to open the office door and was ready to spring. 

You took a deep breath and nodded back to him.

You gripped the door’s handle, making sure that your hands were steady.

You quickly pulled the door open, and Daiki quickly stepped into the doorframe with his gun held up and aimed at the perpetrator.

“National Police Agency. Drop your weapon.”

You carefully watched through the crack between the door and the doorframe, wanting to analyze and get a better grasp of the situation you were going to be in. You could only see the familiar flash of red hair that you recognized as Amelda moving around.

“Take one more step and I’ll kill the kid.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Daiki replied calmly.

You took that as your cue to step into the room, pointing your gun immediately at the young man. You quickly surveyed the room: Amelda stood in the center of the room, which looked like a mess. Amelda had a broad arm wrapped around Mokuba’s body with his other hand wielding a knife that was pressed to his throat. The poor boy’s eyes were wide with fear and confusion and he glanced over at you when you entered, you pressed a finger to your lips to signal him to keep quiet. Your own eyes wandered over to the desk and saw that Seto was duct-taped to his desk chair. You felt your stomach lurch and a sudden shock surged through you that made your entire body buzz like a hornet’s nest had made its way inside you when you saw that there was a bomb strapped to him- though there wasn’t a timer on it, hopefully you could sort this out before Amelda decided to detonate it.

You began to step your way to where Seto was trapped, Seto himself looked like shit. His suit jacket had been discarded and the top buttons of his pristinely white shirt were mussed and the sapphire blue tie he wore had been loosened. He had a black eye and his mouth was duct-taped shut, but his eyes were filled with a fiery rage you had never seen before at the danger Mokuba had been involved in.

Seto’s eyes then met yours, surprised to see you standing here when you should have been at the hospital. His face suddenly changed into one of serious understanding and he nodded to you, you almost thought that you were seeing things it was so subtle. But you nodded in response and continued to sidestep around the room.

“Let Mokuba go Amelda,” you said loudly, getting his attention.

As Amelda turned to look at you, you took a moment to assess his features. The man was very lean from what you could see under the security uniform he wore, but his steel-colored eyes seemed void of any emotion and were lined with purple-grey rings under them from lack of sleep due to the recent events. Surprise decorated his features as well, though a hint of amusement played with the smirk on his lips.

“Hello agent,” he roughly turned himself and Mokuba so that they were facing you. “I’m surprised to see that you’re here, considering you were nearly left to die by Kaiba. I can say that I’m glad to see that you’re alive though, because without you I never could have caught Kaiba here.” 

Amelda walked closer to the older Kaiba brother and gave him a pat on the cheek, though Seto gave the crazed man a death glare.

“Amelda,” Jonouchi had entered the room, pointing his gun directly at Amelda. “Let Mokuba go, we ain’t gonna be lettin’ ya do anythin’ to him. Ya got three officers with guns pointed at ya, don’t do anything stupid if ya wanna get outta here alive.”

Amelda frowned at the blonde, his face drooped into an expression of boredom. He held up a remote that was in his pants pocket and held it up threateningly.

“I wouldn’t come any closer, agents. This remote activates the bomb I strapped on Kaiba, take one more step and I’ll blow us all sky high.”

You, Daiki, and Jonouchi exchanged glances, though you kept your guns pointed at him and stopped walking towards him.

“How are you thinking this will pan out, Amelda?” Daiki asked.

The red-head gave your boss a look, as though he were saying ‘shouldn’t it be obvious?’

“I _was_ thinking that this would end with Kaiba here getting exactly what he deserves,” his bored expression suddenly melted away into an arrogant grin. “But now that _you’re_ here, I guess that they’re gonna have a difficult time separating out all of our body parts.”

“We ain’t gonna let that happen Amelda,” Jonouchi said with certainty.

Amelda suddenly turned his attention towards you and his eyes locked into yours.

“You. You dated Kaiba, right? I’m assuming that he wasn’t exactly the best romantic partner,” he scoffed, “and why would he be? He’s a complete psychopath. Cruel, heartless, and greedy.”

You briefly glanced at Seto, but you nodded.

“You’re right. Seto _was_ an asshole while we dated, and he’s certainly an asshole now.”

Amelda seemed satisfied with your comment. He then turned his head to Seto, who continued to defiantly glare him down, and leaned into his face with a sneer. 

“ _You’re turning out to be just like your pathetic father, Kaiba_.”

“That’s not true!” Mokuba shouted, angry that someone had insulted the one person he cared more about than anybody, despite being held by a knife. “You have no idea what that man did to him!”

Amelda stared at the young man passively before he pressed the knife’s blade harder against his throat, causing small beads of crimson to blossom along the flesh.

“Amelda,” Daiki said sternly. “Unhand Mokuba and release Kaiba. This is your last warning before you come out of here in a body bag.”  
Amelda scoffed.

“Do you honestly believe I’m _afraid_ of dying?? Did you not hear what I said about taking _all_ of us out with this bomb?” Amelda then looked to Seto again, his eyes grew dark and were full of misplaced hatred, “I don’t care if I die. So long as I rid the world of your evil, my life will have been fulfilled.”

“Dontcha know about all of the people he has helped?” Jonouchi, surprisingly, spoke up.

Amelda gave him a puzzled look. You gave him a warning look, but he didn’t seem to notice you.

“He’s built an entire corporation that was built for war an’ turned it into the biggest gamin’ company in all of Japan!”

Amelda’s nostril’s flared angerly and his eyes widened.

“You think I care about anything he’s doing _now_??? The torch of Gozaburo’s sins has been passed down to Kaiba here, and his own greed and arrogance has lead him to completely forget about how the company funded war and death in favor of a product!!”

“Is this what Mikey would have wanted?”

Amelda’s head whipped over to you when you spoke of his brother. His angry expression melted away into one of shock. Everyone followed Amelda’s gaze towards you and they saw that you held the action figure, Amelda quickly patted himself down once he realized that he must have dropped it before his eyes went back to Dyna Guy. He certainly seemed much more calm now, it looks like those notes you read from his therapist came in handy.

“...Mikey.”

Making sure you moved slowly and carefully, as if you were approaching a wild animal, you crouched down to set your gun on the floor; this was a tactic you used to show that you didn’t want to hurt the unsub and to gain their trust. 

“What are you doing??” Mokuba called out in panic when he saw you defenseless.

You ignored Mokuba’s shout. Remaining in your crouching position, you continued to steadily move towards Amelda and hoped that he would at least let go of Mokuba.

“I know what you went through, Amelda. Mikey was just a kid during the war, and I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for you.”

Anger flared up in Amelda’s eyes and he suddenly pushed Mokuba away and grabbed for Seto instead, grabbing him by the hair and pointing his knife at him wildly.

“That was only because of _his_ father! A man who didn’t give a single shit about the pain that he caused, only about the money he could make! And Kaiba is doing the exact same thing!”

Daiki and Jonouchi took a step forward, but Jonouchi quickly reached for Mokuba and promptly took him out of the room. _Good_ , you thought. _This means I’m getting through to him_. Daiki watched you warily, but you held a hand up to him to signal that you were alright. You never broke eye contact with Amelda and you made sure to keep your arm holding Dyna Guy steady.

“Seto had nothing to do with the choices his adoptive father made when he was president. You’ve done research on Seto, so you must have known how horrible of a man 

Gozaburo was to him.”

Amelda scrunched his face up in confusion and he briefly glanced down at Seto.

“That’s not true, I would have known about all of this.”

You shook your head.

“That’s only because his PR is very good at covering everything up. But take a look at Kaiba’s background and notice how it’s nearly similar to yours: you both grew up protecting your younger brothers from the cruelty of the world, doing anything in your power to keep your brothers safe. Gozaburo took Mikey away from you, and he took Seto away from Mokuba.”

Confusion graced Seto’s features as he watched you very carefully, but you ignored him and continued your journey towards Amelda, who seemed a little more conflicted now that you were unearthing all of Kaiba’s secrets.

“Seto took everything that made the Kaiba Corporation dangerous and turned it into a company that brings families together, rather than take them apart. He built KaibaLand, a place he had wanted to build since he was a kid, and has made it free for orphaned kids. He has made countless donations to orphanages in the countries greatly affected by the wars his company had brought and provided supplies for the survivors and built homes for them. He has helped _so_ many kids and _so_ many people, despite his horrific upbringing,” you held Seto’s gaze for a moment: “He is ultimately the most selfless man I know and I cannot stop admiring him.”

Seto’s eyes widened in surprise, he hadn’t expected you to say such kind things about him or his company. Amelda continued to watch you, but you could see some anger growing in his eyes, but you cut him off before he could get a word in.

“He’s helped so many kids over the years of his newfound business, donating millions to homeless shelters, organizing fundraiser and charities for orphanages, and helping with areas effected by catastrophe. I _know_ it was wring of him to focus on the game release instead of the memorial, and I am so sorry that you are hurt, but killing Seto, Mokuba, me, and _especially_ yourself is not going to bring justice to Mikey.”

You were only an arm’s reach away from Amelda now. His eyes were glistening with unshed tears as he stared at the Dyna Guy figure. You continued to hold it out for him as an offering, and he finally took it from your grasp and fell to his knees, tightly clutching the toy to his chest. You let out a small sigh of relief and turned to Seto. His face showed pleasant shock, something you had never seen decorate his features before.

“Alright, let’s get you out of here,” you said as you moved forward to free him from the duct tape.

“Not yet.”

You looked down at Amelda, who still held the detonator in his hand. He wasn’t looking at you, only staring down at the ground below his knees.

“Amelda-“

“If you truly want Kaiba to redeem himself, you’ll have to save him first.”

“Amelda, that’s enough!” Daiki called. “We already have bomb squad out here, there’s no need for any more of this.”

Amelda looked up at you. His eyes slowly moved between you and Seto before he nodded to himself.

“No. I want _her_ to do this. Prove to me that Kaiba is worth saving by saving him yourself.”

You felt bile rise to your throat out of sheer fear. You didn’t know anything about bombs, how the hell were you supposed to do this?

“Amelda, this is crazy!” You called out. “Please, there isn’t any need to do this!”

Amelda gazed down at the action figure, then he looked you dead in the eye as he pushed the button of the detonator.

“You have ten minutes. Your time starts now, agent.”

You could have sworn that you heard a gunshot, but it sounded far away. All you could stare at and focus on was the sudden counting down of the red numbers on the bomb attached to Seto’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been loving these cliffhangers recently! >:3c
> 
> Remember: there's still one chapter left for me to write! How do you think this is going to end?


	15. All in a Day's Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter is up! Since it's been a year since I originally posted this story, it's only fitting that I post the last chapter on its birthday! I hope the chapter lives up to its hype!

Your hands could not stop shaking as you took a few seconds to process the new situation you found yourself in. Your heart clamored against your chest as you watched the numbers flash from 10:00 to 9:59, 9:58-

Your throat felt like it was squeezing shut as though someone was choking you, but at the same time your breath quickened at an almost maddening pace and you were practically gasping for air. Everything felt cold to you as you were beginning to succumb to your panic

9:57, 9:56, 9:55-

“Amelda!” Daiki shouted. “This is ridiculous,” he suddenly began to speak into his radio, “I need bomb squad to come up here quickly, there is a bomb in Kaiba’s office. I repeat, the bomb is in Kaiba’s office. I have the suspect in the room along with Kaiba, and agent, and myself.”

“The bomb squad won’t be able to get here in time,” Seto called out, he sounded irritated.

“This is your final warning, turn off the bomb or I will have to shoot.”

“I can’t turn it off,” you heard Amelda taunt. “The remote I made isn’t capable of turning off the bomb, only setting it off. And like I said earlier: _I don’t care if I die_.”

You barely comprehended their conversation, their voices eventually dissolving into white noise with the only thing you could clearly see was the timer reminding you that you were wasting time.

8:47, 8:46, 8:45-

The sudden sound of you name said softly pulled you from your panicked stupor. 

“Look at me.”

The gentle yet commanding voice brought you back to the present. You stared into Seto’s beautiful eyes, the same pair that you fell in love with years ago, and you felt calmer.

“I recognize this technology from when Gozaburo was in charge and I am _very_ familiar with it. I’m going to coach you through disarming this, alright?”

You nodded slowly, forcing yourself out of your numb state to follow Seto’s instructions.

“What do you need me to do?” You asked gently, thinking back to when Seto asked you the same thing when you were saving Isono.

Seto nodded.

“In my front right pocket, I have a folding knife.”

Your hand continued to tremble madly, but you did as he told you and pulled out the foldable knife from his pocket.

“Good. Now unfold it and pull out the screwdriver.”

You unfolded the silver knife to reveal several other instruments attached to it until you found the screwdriver. You folded all of the other instruments away so that only the screwdriver was out, albeit with trembling hands.

“There should be screws in each corner of the bomb, just outside of the screens. Go ahead and unscrew them.”

You did as Seto told you, though you fumbled a little and almost dropped the knife while you unscrewed the cover of the bomb. You removed the cover, revealing the mess of wires beneath it. Seeing all of the colors and lights became overwhelming and you stared at the timer, watching at it continued to count down. 

7:30, 7:29, 7:28-

“Now I need you to pull out the wires of it, so we can see where the wires are all connected.”

You felt as though you were going to vomit at any second, feeling Amelda’s eyes practically burning a hole through your head as you continued to follow Seto’s instructions. You pulled out the wires, reminding you of colorful and white spaghetti, and all connected to a small cap in the center of the bottom of the bomb. You could barely see anything; your vision suddenly began to blur together and grew overwhelmed as the reality of the situation hit you with full force. You grew very lightheaded and you were worried that you would faint, the only thing keeping you awake is the adrenaline pumping through you and the pressure of responsibility to disarm the bomb and the lives of so many people in this building-

“I can’t do this!” you cried out in between gasping breathes, watching in horror as the timer continued to count down.

6:59, 6:58, 6:57. Your eyes watered, bile began to rise in the back of your throat while simultaneously feeling as though you were being suffocated. 

“I can’t do this!”

Your name was suddenly barked and your head was yanked up, forcing you to look into Seto’s eyes, though they were glaring at Amelda standing behind you.

“It’s either you save him or we all die!” he shouted. “I thought this would be easy for you, _agent_ , but apparently I was wrong.”

You heard him pull something out of his pocket, you had a gut feeling that it was that damned knife he nearly killed you with.

“If I’d have known that you would have been so useless, I would have killed you back at Kaibaland.”

While the sudden sound of a gunshot initially startled you, you weren’t surprised to hear the sound of a body falling into the ground. You looked down at Amelda, drawn by the slowness of the pooling blood that began to appear in your peripherals. Amelda groaned and gripped at his shoulder, surprised that Daiki hadn’t shot to kill him.

“I thought you would have killed me,” he said, his voice wavering with pain.

Daiki marched up to Amelda as he pulled out his handcuffs.

“My job is to get everybody out of here alive,” he gave Amelda a pointed look before bending down and yanking him to his feet, making the man grunt. “ _Everybody_.”

You looked down at the timer, just to see where you were at. 

5:30, 5:29, 

“Everyone’s out of the building,” Daiki said, though he hesitated a little. “Bomb squad isn’t going to get here in time, what do you want to do?”

Although your ears continued to ring from the loud gunshot, knowing that Amelda was wounded seemed to have pulled you out of your stupor and a wave of calmness flooded through you. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath through your nose, releasing it in an even puff to get rid of any remaining nervous jitters. Seto quietly said your name, making you open your eyes. The two of you stared at one another for a brief moment, both understanding that you were in a clear state of mind.

“You can do this,” Seto spoke softly. “I have upmost confidence in you.”

Had you been in any other kind of situation, your heart would have soared to hear the compliment, but you didn’t have time to mull that thought over. You unfolded his pocket knife to pull out the blade, grabbing the colorful wires gently.

“Now what?”

Seto took a moment to observe the multitude of colorful wires.

“Alright, there is a sequence of colors you’ll need to cut the wires in. Luckily, the ones you need to actually cut are the only ones colored. Got it?” You nodded. “First, cut the red wire right at the base.”

You delicately separated all of the other wires, afraid that the bomb would go off if you even touched one of the wires with the blade, and carefully slipped the knife underneath it. You folded the wire over the knife and pulled up, careful not to cut yourself on accident as you sliced through the wires.

“Good,” Seto gently praised, “now do the same thing with the blue wire.”

You did as you were told, chuckling slightly as a sudden thought came to mind.

“This is sort of like that handheld Simon game, where you press all of the buttons in a certain order.”

Seto didn’t say anything, not that you expected him to. It was a really shitty time to make a humorous comment, but you needed to say it to help cope with the situation.

“Which one’s next.”

Seto peered down at the wires.

“Yellow.”

You snipped the wire, growing more confident in your abilities of disarming a bomb.

“Is this really all it takes to disarm a bomb?” You asked, feeling a bit more like yourself.

“Not usually,” Seto replied. “Gozaburo made sure that his bombs were purposely complex, so that they could blow up even in the case of someone disarming it.”

_Well shit._

The comment was nearly enough to send you reeling back into your panic. Although you initially forced yourself to avoid looking at the timer, you couldn’t help but to glance at it to see how much time you had left.

2:42, 2:41, 2:40-

Seto caught on to his mistake quickly and said your name again before you could fully set into another panic attack.

“We’re going to be alright. Gozaburo was an idiot and made some bombs easy to disarm as a prototype, which is what this one is.” 

You nodded, feeling your heart stutter in your brief panic.

“Which do I cut next?”

When Seto didn’t respond right away you looked up at him, seeing how he grit his teeth and stared frustratingly at the wires.

“Amelda must have rigged this to add the timer, he changed the layout of the wiring.”

You heard Daiki drag Amelda back up to the two of you, seeing your boss point his gun at Amelda.

“How do we deactivate the bomb?” He asked coolly.

2:09, 2:08, 2:07-

You heard Amelda shout in pain as Daiki jerked his arm with the wounded shoulder and let out an annoyed groan.

“Cut the two white wires that connected together at the bottom!”

You immediately snatched up the two wires and cut through them, then heard a noise that was similar to shutting down a computer. Looking at the timer you saw that it was completely blank. 

You had done it.

You released a breathless laugh as relieved tears flooded your vision. You barely heard the sound of Daiki dragging Amelda out of the office as you began to set about with freeing Seto fro the duct-tape restraints.

“Holy shit,” you said, mostly to yourself. “I can’t believe I actually did it!”

Seto hummed and rubbed at his wrists once you cut the tape away.

“I knew you would be able to.”

You looked at him in surprise, giddiness bubbling up inside you from the compliment. You noticed that he cringed a little as he slowly stood up and winced a bit.

“Can you stand?”

Seto frowned at you.

“Obviously I can, I’m standing now.”

You rolled your eyes as you went to fetch your gun. As you picked up your weapon, you once again found the Dyna Guy figure laying on the floor. You reached down and picked it up, turning it over as you observed it before slipping it into your pocket.

“I can see _that_ , I just meant do you need any help? I heard that Amelda knocked you out, so you may have a concussion.”

Although Seto took a step forward, he wobbled only a little bit. You rushed up to his side, touching his shoulders gently to keep him from falling.

“You know you can lean on me if you need to,” you suggested.

Seto shook his head and moved your hands away from him. 

“I’m fine.” He didn’t look at you as he made his way to the elevator, clenching his jaw in an attempt to ignore the pain he was in. “I don’t have time for this, I’m late enough as it is to the Kaiba Cube press conference.”

You felt yourself deflate a little as he passed you and watched dumbly as he entered his private elevator. Seto turned in the elevator and looked at you expectantly, though he rolled his eyes and stared at you impatiently as he held the door open for you and prevented it from closing.

“You’ll probably want to be coming down with me, just so everyone knows that you’re alright.”

You sped-walked to the elevator, ducking under his arm, and stood next to him. The first few moments of the ride was filled with a slightly uncomfortable silence.

“...I want to apologize to you. For having my doubts.”

Your head practically snapped towards him, but Seto kept his gaze fixed forward. You couldn’t think of a response you were so flabbergasted. Although his voice had its usual coldness to it, you could hear the sincerity in it.

“I’m grateful Mokuba contacted your team. I realize now that without all of you, this whole ordeal would have been disastrous.” 

He looked at you from the side as though he were watching for your reaction. You dragged yourself out of your daze and smiled at him.

“I’m sure we would have been called in anyway.”

Seto nodded before settling his eyes back onto the elevator in front of him. You decided to spend the time watching the numbers of the screen slowly go down, though you suddenly felt a slight panic as you watched the numbers decrease.

25, 24, 23-

You closed your eyes and looked away from the numbers, choosing instead to watch the doors in front of you and simply waited for them to ding open.

“...I also want to thank you.”

You scoffed.

“I was only doing my job.”

“Not what I meant. I mean for taking on this case: even though we dated and broke up in the past and we both were... _unprofessional_ towards each other, but you didn’t let it stop you from doing your job.” Seto moved his hands and held them behind his back and turned to face you, you watched him. “You have my respect, agent.”

Your jaw nearly fell off as you watched Japan’s most powerful business man bow deeply to you. After years and years of his scornful words following you, after having suffered through his scathing words all throughout this case, you had _finally_ managed to prove yourself to him. You laughed, though your voice fumbled, as little happy tears began to fill your vision.

“Thank you, Seto,” you replied as you bowed back to him.

Seto had already straightened out at this point, but he gave you a passive glance and hummed as you stood upright.

“We’re even now.”

You narrowed your eyes a bit, thinking about what he could possibly be meaning.

“Even?”

“I saved your life, then you saved mine,” he explained easily as he straightened his attire, looking in the reflection of the elevator door. “Therefore, we are even now.”

You rolled your eyes at him.

“There’s no need to be so dramatic.” The elevator door dinged, you gave Seto an uncertain look, “are you really sure you want to do this press-conference thing after everything that happened?”

He stepped out of the elevator and you easily fell into step with him, albeit hurriedly.

“Of course. I can’t let a simple bomb threat get in the way of my company. Especially since I still have to hold the memorial service after.”

You nodded, though as the two of you quickly approached the doors you took a large breath in, knowing that the media and paparazzi would be hounding the two of you and asking millions of questions. You were startled when you felt Seto’s larger hand grip yours, and when you looked up at him he had only been staring forward.

“Don’t worry about them, let’s just focus on getting you out of here and back to your headquarters.”

You smiled up at him, and tightly gripped his hand as the both of you stepped out into not only the bright sun, but also the bright flashes of cameras. A mass of people shouted your names, shoved microphones into your faces, and asking questions at such a rapid pace that you grew overwhelmed. But Seto kept his hands firmly on your shoulders as he marched the two of you to an awaiting ambulance, where the rest of your team and Mokuba all were. You only saw a brief flash of black hair as Mokuba ran up to Seto and pulling his brother down for a much-needed hug. Your teammates quickly made their way up to you and enveloped you in a group hug as well, all of them voices their concerns for you.

“Way ta save Kaiba’s butt! Money-bags better be grateful to you!”

“Are you okay? Amelda didn’t do anything to you this time, did he?”

“Are your injuries alright?”

“What was it like having to diffuse an actual bomb?”

“Guys, guys!” you said with a laugh. “If I had wanted to answer so many questions, I would still be in that swarm of paparazzi.”

A doctor from the ambulance helped you sit down and quickly looked over you for injuries, helping you out of your vest. Once you were cleared out, you remained there and wrapped the blanket he had given you a little tighter around yourself. You felt a hand clap onto your shoulder and looked at Daiki, who was smiling proudly at you.

“You did a good job in there, kiddo. I’m proud of you.”

“Woah, recognition from my boss AND Seto in one day?”

“Wait, where’s Amelda going?” Honda abruptly asked.

“He’s going to be held at a Domino’s top prison,” Daiki stated. “He’ not going anywhere for a long time.”

You and your team nodded. You laughed as you felt Mokuba’s arms wrap around you in a tight hug.

“I can’t thank you guys enough for what you did!”

“It was nothing,” Yugi said as Mokuba hugged him. “We were only doing our jobs.”

“Yeah! But since we saved his butt, maybe Kaiba wouldn’t mind givin’ us a special bonus, or even funding,” Jonouchi said with a laugh.

Honda smacked his friend.

“That’s not how that works.”

“Even if it was, I still wouldn’t pay you a dime.” 

You all turned to the sound of Seto’s voice, he was shaking off the doctors who had all quickly approached him and ignoring their concerns.

“Kaiba,” Anzu said, sounding surprised.

“If one more person asks me if I’m okay, I will ruin their life.”

Anzu’s mouth snapped shut and she gave him an annoyed glare. He gave you a once over and nodded, which you returned, before he looked at Daiki.

“You and your team saved my company, I wanted to thank you for all of your efforts.”

Once again Kaiba bowed, though not quite as deeply as he had bowed to you. It was enough to stun the rest of your co-workers, minus Daiki, of course, into shocked silence. You could have sworn you saw the corners of Daiki’s mouth twitch up and bowed back.

“Call us any time you come across another serious threat.”

Kaiba stood back up and nodded, then he turned away from your group and walked back towards the podium that had been set up for him. The younger Kaiba brother gave you all one last fleeting glance before he caught up with the elder. You felt Ryuji elbow your side.

“Well, at least now you can go back and see that doctor again.”

You rolled your eyes and pushed him away. Jonouchi held his hands behind his back.

“Ugh, that Kaiba. I hope he learns to take us more seriously now.”

“Yeah,” Yugi agreed. “What do we all want to do now?”

“I’m pretty hungry, do we wanna get something to eat?” you suggested.

“Hell yeah!” Honda cheered.

You grinned and hopped off the back of the ambulance, making your way through the crowd back to where the police cars were. You looked up at Seto and watched him for a moment, not really paying attention to what he was saying. He was entirely focused on talking about his gaming device, but his eyes would drift over to you to make sure you were alright. You smiled at him, proud of how Kaiba Corporation has truly changed under his guidance and leadership. You pulled out the Dyna Guy action figure, a sudden sadness panging through you as you remembered what this originally meant to Amelda. He was so blinded by his rage from losing his family that he had completely forgotten about who he had lost. 

You held the toy close to your chest and looked around before noticing that right next to the entrance of the Kaiba Corporation building was a large plaque. _This is new_ , you thought as you walked up to it. The plaque was enormous and made of marble, but it had a list of names on it. You leaned back and tilted your head up a bit as you looked at the top of the plaque. _In Memory of the Victims of the Wars Caused by Gozaburo Kaiba_. You pressed your lips together as you looked at the spaces left for a shrine, where people had already placed photos and food offerings and flowers for the loved ones they lost. You stepped forward and placed the Dyna Guy figure on a space. You got down on your knees and used the pens and banners provided to write a small note to hang up with the figure, _For Mikey and Amelda_. As you hung the banner above the figure, you could only hope that wherever Mikey was, he could look at where Kaiba Corporation was now and be glad for its changes, as well as look past his brother’s faults and forgive him for what he had done. 

After spending some to pay your respects, you stood up and finally walked back to your team, who had been waiting patiently for you by the big van you had been using this whole case. You couldn’t wait to get some much needed rest, and you briefly wondered what kind of craziness the next case could bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little side note: the Kaiba Cube was inspired by the Quantum Cube fro Dark Side of Dimensions.
> 
> Thank you to everybody who read and reviewed this story, it means a hell of a lot to me! I was mostly inspired to write this story after watching an episode of _Yu-gi-oh! The Abridged Series_ , where Kaiba says that Alister's intentions made no sense. I applied it to _Criminal Minds_ and here we are! I'll definitely be working on extending this series and creating more situations, as well as adding more and more Yu-gi-oh! characters to it. Let me know what you guys would like to see in the future, I'm completely open to suggestions! :)


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